On Monday, at her summit in Cardiff with the leaders of the SNP and Plaid Cymru, Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Féin president, joked about Liverpool being the 33rd county of Ireland. Andy Burnham is basically a Scouser; he was born in Liverpool and supports a Liverpool football team, despite being brought up in Culcheth, a village mid-way between Liverpool and Manchester, which made him enough of a Manc to be the city’s mayor. He also has Irish ancestry, and so the mood should be very cordial today when he hosts Micheál Martin, the taoiseach (Irish PM) at No 10 North in Manchester this morning.
It is the first time that Burnham has used No 10 North to host an overseas visit, which should help a bit his efforts to establish that No 10 North is a proper government power base, and not just a branch office. And, in its overnight release about the visit, No 10 says it is part of a deliberate attempt by Burnham to use meetings with overseas leaders to highlight parts of the UK outside London. No 10 says: The historic visit to No 10 North comes as the prime minister shines a spotlight on towns up and down the country, days after he hosted Canadian prime minister Mark Carney in Liverpool and Nato secretary general Mark Rutte in Oxford.
No 10 also points out that, when Burnham met Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, they were at Portsmouth. It should be a friendly meeting. When Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester, he had several meetings with Martin, including in Ireland, and when Burnham became PM Martin issued a statement praising him as someone who was “a great champion of deeper links between Ireland and Britain”.
No 10 says the talks will focus on “shared objectives including boosting trade, supporting Ukraine, and working with the European Union as Ireland continues its presidency of the EU”. After the formal meetings, the two leaders will visit an Irish community centre. While Burnham and Martin are meeting in Manchester, John Healey, the chancellor, will be in Dublin where he has been invited to an informal meeting of Ecofin, the meeting of EU finance ministers.
And it is not just a social meeting. The UK is desperate to get some sort of exemption from the EU’s “Made in Europe” procurement laws and Healey will be making the case for this to his European counterparts. According to Treasury sources briefing overnight, Healey will be urging the EU to implement the “Made in Europe” rules in a way that “lands a good deal for all” instead of “erecting new barriers”.
Otherwise, the political diary is fairly empty. I’m afraid we are no longer able to have comments open below the line every day on this blog. If you want to contact me, please email [email protected].
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