The U.K.’s new prime minister Andy Burnham has finally finished filling out his ministerial team. There’s a lot of change of personnel at the top and the bottom. Here’s what it could mean for Taiwan:
Prime Minister: Andy Burnham
Burnham took an unconventional route to the top of British politics, having spent nine years outside of London as Mayor of Greater Manchester. He only reentered parliament six weeks ago through a by-election. As a result, he hasn’t recently held national office — although he was health secretary in the Blair and Brown governments.
As Manchester mayor, Burnham visited China and interacted with Chinese diplomats in the U.K. as well. There’s little that can be inferred from this — as mayor of a major British city this is exactly what one would expect.
Chancellor: John Healey
Burnham has chosen as his finance minister a surprising pick in Healey. While Healey is naturally expected to focus more on the domestic than the international, his selection still has major implications abroad.
Healey was the defense minister for the previous government under Keir Starmer. He resigned on June 11, saying that the U.K. treasury was refusing to adequately fund British defense. Specifically, he wanted 3% of GDP spent on defense by 2030 and 3.5% by 2035. As chancellor, it would seem politically and morally indefensible for him not to find almost all of this money.
This is likely to steady British allies in the Indo-Pacific, especially Japan which is partnering with the U.K. and Italy to build the Global Combat Air Programme, or GCAP. British funding for that had been repeatedly delayed. Burnham has already recommitted to it.
Defense Secretary: Wes Streeting
Healey’s old job is now held by Streeting. The former health secretary is seen as one of Labour’s heavy hitters, likely to bring competence and public communication skills to the job.
Burnham himself is seen as domestically focused, but his picks for the treasury and defense, as well as his conviction that British defense industries need more support, suggest that his government will be steady on security issues rather than withdrawing.
Foreign Secretary: Ed Miliband
Miliband was seen as a likely pick for chancellor. He comes from the soft-left of the Labour party, with a focus on policy and reform. He was previously the Secretary for Energy Security and Net Zero, responsible for reducing the U.K.’s carbon emissions.
In this role, Miliband engaged heavily with China, repeatedly meeting with Chinese counterparts. In 2025, he signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a U.K.-China Clean Energy Partnership. However, he also banned the new national energy company from using technology with slavery or human trafficking in its supply chain, albeit reportedly due to pressure from parliamentarians. This will significantly impede the use of Chinese green energy technology in the U.K., especially for industries like solar power that are heavily based in Xinjiang.
All of this has fueled a sense that Miliband foreign policy focus is likely to be environmentally driven and potentially more friendly to China. But the reality is that Miliband lacks a strong background in international relations and thus much is unclear. One interesting note is that he is heading up an expanded ministerial team at the foreign office.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Indo-Pacific: Rosie Winterton
When Labour came to power in 2024, Catherine West became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Indo-Pacific, a role that she had spent the previous three years in the opposition preparing for. But she was moved out of the role after only one year in a broader reshuffle, and her replacement Seema Malhotra made little impact, possibly because she was simultaneously holding other roles in different government departments.
Malhotra’s replacement is Winterton, who is a member of the House of Lords, the U.K.’s unelected upper chamber. Winterton most recently served as the U.K.’s trade envoy to Bangladesh, so there is some geographical continuity. Predecessors in the Indo-Pacific brief were responsible for making statements on Taiwan, but did not visit Taipei.
Minister for Trade: Anas Sarwar
The one British ministerial level position that has regularly engaged directly with the Taiwanese government is the trade minister. Greg Hands under the previous Conservative government, and Douglas Alexander last year, came to Taipei for trade dialogues and met with Taiwan’s president. However, a lower-ranked civil servant led annual trade talks this May. It was reported in January that after Alexander’s visit, China threatened to cancel its own trade talks with the U.K.
Sarwar is an interesting pick. He was previously the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, sitting in the Scottish regional parliament, but resigned to take this new role. He will enter the Lords in order to serve in government. He is thus a relatively high-profile figure to take the trade brief, and Scotland is at the vanguard of much of the U.K.’s economic engagement in Taiwan, due to the Taiwanese appetite for whiskey and wind power.
All eyes will be on whether he shows up in Taipei next year.
Two footnotes to finish:
The U.K. has elevated the minister for AI role to a more senior level, placing it in both the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (with Sarwar) as well as the prime minister’s cabinet office. Kanishka Narayan is the minister for AI. He recently told the Financial Times that semiconductors and drones will be at the heart of Burnham’s drive to reindustrialize Britain. It will be interesting to see whether and where Narayan thinks Taiwan fits into that picture.
The Henry Jackson Society published an interesting piece about the role of Jim O’Neill, who has emerged as one of Burnham’s economic advisors. O’Neill was part of George Osborne’s treasury during the “golden era” of U.K. relations with China, and despite how well it went the first time, is supportive of more economic engagement with Beijing. Readers may also recognize him as the man who coined the BRICS acronym.
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