Andy Burnham has a boats problem – and no amount of glossy TikToks can make it go away. Since taking the top job, the Prime Minister has hit the ground running with a packed grid of announcements. They have focused on some of the most pressing issues of the day, including the cost of living, defence, NEETs and social care. Yet one subject has been conspicuously absent from the agenda: immigration.
It remains one of voters’ top concerns, but Burnham has found far less time to discuss it than the opening of a new government office in Manchester. Downing Street has so far been remarkably successful at controlling the news agenda through its onslaught of announcements. The strategy has largely paid off, with the Prime Minister enjoying a Burnham bounce that has knocked Reform off the top of the polls for the first time in 15 months. But avoiding immigration will only become more difficult. Burnham cannot keep schtum for much longer.
All we have heard from Burnham on illegal migration is that he thinks the plan to end the crossings ‘is working’.
The Tories have been particularly effective this week at exposing the continuing farce in the Channel. The Home Office boasts that crossings are down 44 per cent compared with the same period last year. But four migrants died at sea today, while 750 reached Kent yesterday. At least 13,500 have arrived illegally by boat this year, with dinghies getting larger and ferrying greater numbers. As we speak thousands of migrants are storming the border between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, triggering a national crisis. With warmer weather and calmer seas, the crossings are all but certain to continue.
