The coming general election will be the ugliest in our lifetime, Andy Burnham has warned, as he urged his party to offer hope and not engage in Tory culture wars.

The former Labour Health Secretary, now the two-term mayor of Greater Manchester, said voters also wanted profound change to the British state after decades of inequality.

Speaking at the Edinburgh Fringe, he said constitutional reform including more autonomy for Scotland in a “rewired” UK, should be a “day one” priority for Labour.

He said previous governments had dithered, not realising that ending Westminster’s grip on power was the key step to delivering social change after decades of inertia and decay.

Mr Burnham, who came second to Jeremy Corbyn in the 2015 Labour leadership, was speaking at an In Conversation event with former Labour MSP Neil Findlay.

Asked about the election expected next year, Mr Burnham told a packed audience at The Stand New Town theatre: “Let’s be honest, I think we’re heading to the most unpleasant, divisive general election we will ever see in our lifetimes.

“The Tories are betting the shop on culture wars, and they’re going to make it as toxic as they can make them. They’re already doing it.”

Referring to Tory MP and deputy party chair Lee Anderson recently saying asylum seekers should “f*** off back to France”, he said: “You see a rhetoric coming out from them that I don’t think I would ever see in my political lifetime. F off back to France?

“Can you imagine an elected representative of the Conservative party in the British Parliament using language like that? Did you ever think you would see that happen?

“Honestly, I can’t imagine. And yet he’s deputy chairman of the bloody party.

“So we know what’s coming. In those circumstances, what do you do?

“Do you go fight on that territory, or do you get on a massively different plane and say, No, we believe in a very different vision of a country that’s about respect, standards, equality, justice, things that people can believe in.

“I think that’s where the public mood is right now. The public see that there’s a need for a rewiring [of the state]. I think that’s where people are.

“The danger is that as the problems get bigger the politics gets smaller. That can’t be allowed. 

“Obviously oppositions are cautious. But we’re hitting that point now where I think [Labour] have put themselves in a position where the country’s listening, and there is that opportunity to put that hopeful platform out there.

“Speaking personally, that’s what I believe they should do. Not promising the world, not making those unfunded commitments. They would be wrong to do that.

“But there is enough, perhaps drawing on what we’ve done [with mayors] in Manchester, Liverpool and West Yorkshire, to say this is the change that Labour would bring.”