I don’t want to be snarky about Andy Burnham. He seems a modest, pleasant chap. And that’s good.
Andy Burnham is discovering that in power, you can’t have it both ways (Image: Getty)
The PM has charm, self-deprecation and the wit to deflect political attacks. He’s a massive step up on Keir Starmer, and has already done the country a great service by helping torpedo Green Party chancer Zack Polanski. I’d have a beer with Burnham ahead of almost anybody else in Parliament. There’s just one problem. I just don’t think he’ll make a very good PM. He might even be a terrible one. And we saw why yesterday, when he made a total hash of his first big Brexit test.
Charm and a desire to please are useful qualities, until you have to make tough decisions that will annoy half the country, and there’s no middle way. So far, making all the right noises has served Burnham well. Labour MPs swung behind him as he promised more public spending, more nationalisation, more social security and more EU. All that sounds delightful in his left-wing echo chamber. In power, they’re a total liability.
More spending? We don’t have the money. Nationalisation? It’ll do more harm than good, and we don’t have the money anyway. More social security? What we really need is jobs and growth and, oh, there’s no money. More EU? Is he absolutely flipping crazy?
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Reopening Brexit is a recipe for trouble, as yesterday showed. The left lost its mind over Europe years ago. In the 1970s, the EU was seen by much of the left as a capitalist club to be avoided. Now it’s presented as the answer to every problem we face. Newsflash: it isn’t. Today, it’s got massive problems of its own. Just look at Germany and France.
Burnham just embarrassed himself by claiming that Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum, saying he was given a “clear answer” that it did. We’re still waiting for the evidence to back that up. He’s also insulted Brexit voters, implying they’re dupes. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch nailed him saying: “We all remember that in 2018, the head of MI5 said that there was no evidence that Russia had influenced the EU referendum result.”
Burnham handed Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage an opportunity to nail him to the wall, and they took it. Johnson said the PM’s “lies have come back to him” while Farage said: “The Prime Minister is a liar.”
Burnham did another Brexit flip-flop by telling MPs that “no one in the House today is proposing a referendum”, before saying the country had to “look at the options”. It’s embarrassing.
The PM is blatantly reopening a debate he promised Makerfield voters would remain closed. During the by-election, Burnham said Britain would be stuck in a “permanent rut” if it kept rerunning Brexit arguments. He was right. Now he’s fallen into that rut, and could be permanently stuck there.
He said one thing to Makerfield voters when it suited him, but is now sending different messages to the Green Party and Lib Dem voters he’s trying to woo ahead of a possible snap election.
In doing so, a man who promised a “new path which brings the country back together” has reopened the most divisive political debate of the Millennium. For a nice guy, he’s really stirring things up. And this is only the start of the chaos.
Andy Burnham accused of ‘inciting disorder’ as 781 migrants cross Channel in single day
Andy Burnham is accused of inciting disorder after a record 781 migrants crossed the Channel in one day, while Reform UK warns numbers are accelerating.
Andy Burnham accused of ‘inciting disorder’ over migrant crisis (Image: Getty)
Andy Burnham has been accused of inciting disorder across the country because of the way his Government is handling the migration crisis.
It comes after his administration suffered its worst day on record, with 781 illegal migrants breaking into the country in unlawful Channel crossings in a single day.
The record-breaking influx also saw two boats arrive on UK shores undetected, sparking fury in Westminster and triggering threats of protests at migrant sites.
Horrendous footage and pictures, seen in Thursday’s Daily Express, also show what appears to be a man abandoning a child in the water so he can climb aboard a crowded dinghy.
Reform UK’s Shadow Home Secretary Zia Yusuf warned that numbers were “accelerating” despite Home Office claims that the overall total had reduced.
He told Good Morning Britain that the UK has had “north of 210,000 people turn up on our beaches illegally in the past eight years” and warned “people’s lives are being turned upside down”.
Those comments were in relation to the village of Piddington, which recently hosted a symbolic referendum to leave the UK in protest against the housing of migrants at a nearby base.
Mr Yusuf said residents “are terrified that they are about to be outnumbered 10 to 1 by illegal migrant men”.
Home Office data shows a decline in the number of crossings this year, but critics say the overall figure remains far too high, with an insufficient number of people being sent back to their countries of origin.
Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf accuses Andy Burnham of inciting disorder (Image: Getty)
In a scathing attack on the Prime Minister, Mr Yusuf said: “Andy Burnham is inciting disorder in Britain by wielding the state’s monopoly on violence to impose unvetted men from countries like Afghanistan, Syria and Eritrea into local communities.”
He added: “This is unprecedented. I am worried the country is heading to a dark place.”
His remarks refer to footage showing coaches used to transfer migrants from the coast to immigration centres being accompanied by a police escort.
There have been mounting protests by masked men near locations used to hold migrants, though police support for security reasons is not uncommon.
