Andy Burnham coasted into No. 10 via an uncontested leadership election in which he was never forced to share his views on the great and grave issues facing Britain. As a result, when he became Prime Minister we knew little to nothing about how he planned to address the migration crisis, the energy crisis, the worklessness crisis or the prisons crisis. But to govern is to be confronted with events and forced to choose and so we are fast learning who Burnham is. Last week’s scenes from Ceuta, as 60,000 Moroccans swarmed across the Spanish border, seemed to represent the gulf between the rich, soft West, and the people who come here because they want the wealth we are all too eager to give them.
What we’re really being offered isn’t a trade, but an additional route by which asylum seekers will flood into the country
So Burnham was required to speak, to choose, to reveal who he is. What we saw was worrying. He has promised to be ‘relentless’ in reducing arrivals via small boats with a new ‘whole approach’. ‘People want to see this issue addressed’, the PM said, in what might have been thought blindingly obvious. He then demonstrated how clueless he is by adding ‘we also need to build a system that offers safe routes for people as well, because that also takes away the selling point of the gangs.’ Burnham seems to believe that the problem is not the arrival of tens of thousands of unwanted migrants, many of whom we know will cost us a great deal of money, and often be more criminal than the general population. Nor does he seem to understand that the problem is the asylum system which waves through obviously false claims and immigration courts which almost never allow deportations. No, according to Burnham, it’s how people get here in the first place, and if asylum seekers are flown in to Heathrow, rather than brought ashore in Border Force boats after being intercepted mid-Channel, then all will be well.
