Foreign policy in Britain is often discussed as if it were a distant theatre, detached from the everyday realities of people’s lives. Yet the past decade has shown repeatedly that global shocks land first and hardest in the towns that have the least insulation from volatility. Energy price spikes, supply chain disruptions, geopolitical tensions and investment flows reverberate through UK towns like Leigh and Wigan, Motherwell and Port Talbot, long before they appear in Westminster briefings.
Andy Burnham, newly elected as MP for Makerfield, steps back onto the national stage after nearly a decade as a metro mayor – and as the UK Labour Party’s near-certain choice to replace Keir Starmer as UK prime minister. Burnham describes his politics – shaped by the lived experience of Greater Manchester’s towns – as ‘Manchesterism’: an attempt to deliver ‘good growth in every British postcode’, nurtured ‘from the bottom up’, using ‘public intervention where necessary’ – driven by higher ambition for UK regions and towns.
This outlook, core to his local election success, also offers a distinctive way of thinking about Britain’s international posture: an approach that I describe as ‘International Manchesterism’. That is, a place rooted internationalism that treats global forces as inseparable from local outcomes.
International Manchesterism begins with the recognition that global shocks are experienced locally. The manufacturing clusters of north-west England, and other UK regions, have felt the real world consequences of supply chain fragility more acutely than the financial districts of London. When international energy markets convulse, households in older housing stock across Wigan and Leigh face disproportionate hardship. And when geopolitical tensions disrupt investment flows, regeneration projects in Greater Manchester stall.
I propose that International Manchesterism should be applied to UK policy through a ‘Makerfield Test’: a disciplined framework a new Burnham government can use to assess its international priorities.
Rather than judging foreign policy by summitry, diplomatic choreography or doctrinal positioning, the Makerfield Test would ask a simpler and more demanding question: do Britain’s international choices tangibly improve life in the communities that forged Burnham’s politics?
Recasting foreign policy through this lens offers a way to reconnect global strategy with domestic renewal. It can also rebuild public trust in the value of international engagement. So what elements make up the Makerfield Test?
Economic security
Economic security is the first pillar. For towns like Makerfield, global economic shifts are not abstract phenomena; they determine job stability, wage levels and household resilience. A credible foreign policy agenda must show how Britain can better shield its industrial and service sectors from volatility.
That means strengthening supply chain resilience for regional manufacturing, ensuring trade agreements reflect the needs of sectors outside London, and developing a strategic approach to critical minerals and inputs.
This would recognize that these issues are not technocratic concerns but questions of fairness. Foreign policy must stabilize the economic foundations of Britain’s towns, not merely enhance the country’s global profile.
Energy resilience
The Makerfield test would insist on energy policy that is understood through the lived experience of households, not the abstractions of international negotiations.
England’s northwest has been particularly exposed to international price spikes.
And the experience of the past few years has made clear that Britain’s energy diplomacy cannot be judged solely by its alignment with global climate summits. It must be judged by whether it lowers household bills and creates industrial opportunities in places like Leigh, Ashton and Wigan.
That requires diversified gas supply, expanded storage, deeper cooperation on renewable energy including offshore wind and hydrogen, and a commitment to ensuring that global energy transitions generate regional jobs rather than bypassing them.
Rebalancing investment
A third element of the Makerfield Test concerns international investment. Foreign direct investment has long been concentrated in London and the southeast of England, reinforcing regional inequality. But Burnham’s mayoralty has demonstrated that targeted international engagement can attract capital to regions historically overlooked by national strategy.
The Test would require a foreign policy agenda that champions regional investment corridors, strengthens ties with countries investing in advanced manufacturing, and reforms the UK’s investment promotion machinery so that regional assets are systematically showcased abroad. In this framing, international investment becomes a tool for rebalancing the geography of opportunity.
Skills, mobility and global opportunity
Globalization has often been experienced as insecurity rather than possibility, particularly in towns with limited access to global networks. The Makerfield Test would ask if government foreign policy is helping to reverse this dynamic.
Doing so would mean developing international skills partnerships in digital, green and advanced manufacturing sectors; expanding mobility schemes for young people outside major metropolitan centres; and aligning migration policy with regional labour needs.
The Makerfield Test would demand policy that positions global opportunity as something that must be distributed, not captured by a narrow geography.
Reimagining Atlanticism
For decades, successive UK governments’ Atlanticism has been framed as a strategic reflex – a doctrinal commitment rather than a practical question.
The Makerfield Test would judge the government’s US related policies by their ability to deliver concrete benefits for Britain’s towns: stable jobs, secure energy, resilient supply chains and access to global markets. This requires a shift from rhetorical alignment to purposeful cooperation.
The UK and US already share interests in critical minerals, semiconductors, green manufacturing, and energy security. Applying the Makerfield Test would drive policy that deepens collaboration in these areas, in ways that underpin the economic resilience of regions like Greater Manchester.
It would treat joint investment in battery technology, aerospace, life sciences and hydrogen as central pillars of a shared industrial future with the US. And it would draw on US experience with community college systems and regional workforce development to strengthen Britain’s own skills infrastructure.
China and the Global South
The UK occupies a space increasingly defined by middle power dynamics, in which countries exercise influence through coalitions, issue based partnerships and strategic agility rather than through unilateral leverage.
The Makerfield Test would demand global strategy that seeks to convene, coordinate and shape rules across multiple domains in a way that delivers tangible benefits at home.
This is particularly important in navigating the evolving US–China relationship. The Test would require policy that avoids binary alignment with either side and instead focuses on protecting British economic security, maintaining access to critical technologies and ensuring that global competition does not undermine regional industries.
It would support deep cooperation with the US on supply chain resilience and green industrial transitions, while maintaining selective engagement with China in areas where cooperation is essential – such as energy transitions, global health, scientific research and regulated trade.
The Makerfield Test would also apply to policy on the Global South, seeking partnerships capable of delivering investment, technology and market access to Britain’s regions. That requires moving beyond paternalistic development narratives and instead building reciprocal, interest based coalitions that reflect the realities of a multipolar world.
By applying the Test, Britain would become a connector, a convener and a problem solver – a country that leverages its diplomatic networks, regulatory influence, scientific capacity and development expertise to shape outcomes that matter both globally and locally in the UK.
Foreign policy as domestic renewal
Ultimately, International Manchesterism challenges Westminster to rethink how foreign policy is conceived, communicated and assessed. It insists that international engagement be judged not by elite indicators but by its impact on UK communities. And it aligns global strategy with domestic renewal, offering a language for explaining foreign policy in terms that resonate with everyday experience.
If Burnham can articulate an international agenda that passes the Makerfield Test, he will not only redefine Britain’s foreign policy conversation. He will demonstrate that global strategy can be rooted in the lived realities of the places that shaped him.
A version of this article also appeared on the LSE British Politics blog.