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.
Chris Philp’s expedition to Hardelot-Plage exposed the farcical spectacle of gendarmes standing by as men hurled themselves on to inflatable rafts. They are not permitted to intervene, despite Britain’s £660 million cheque to the French to prevent departures. The shadow home secretary even confronted a people-smuggler ushering illegal migrants on to the boats. Yet the gendarmes could not arrest him because, according to Philp, they claimed there was insufficient evidence to do so.
Of course, it is easy to blame our friends across the Channel. But this is ultimately a UK government problem – and the head of the UK government has so far refused to address it directly or comprehensively.
All we have heard from Burnham on illegal migration is that he thinks the plan to end the crossings ‘is working’. When asked about the crisis this morning, Wes Streeting insisted the same – and even took a swipe at Philp for filming French police. This nothing-to-see-here attitude will not hold.
For one thing, the shadow home secretary told The Spectator that he would do everything possible to keep shining a spotlight on the issue Burnham is trying to avoid. Reform is also expected to focus on the subject next week. Philp said: ‘The reason I was in France isn’t because I enjoy getting wet or enjoy getting shot at. It’s because I wanted to bring this issue right to the top of the political agenda and to force Andy Burnham to confront it instead of hiding from the issue, which is what he wants to do. It’s part of my job as shadow home secretary to work out how to raise this issue. And if it takes me wading into the English Channel next to a people-smuggler’s boat to do that, I’m prepared to do it.’
Addressing migration – both legal and illegal – would, of course, require Burnham to confront the swathes of Labour backbenchers who are completely out of step with a public that wants not only an end to the dinghies but also a drastic reduction in legal migration. We still do not know the Prime Minister’s plans for the so-called Boriswave, or whether he intends to press ahead with Shabana Mahmood’s proposal to extend the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five to ten years.
It is all well and good for Burnham to have fun ranking pub snacks or tossing hard hats in the air for social media. But the difficult issues, those that offend the sensibilities of many Labour MPs, are not going away. There is only so long he can hide from them.
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