DAN HODGES: Burnham has dared to go where previous Labour leaders have feared to tread – but this is why there’s still a long way before he can claim to have gripped this small-boats crisis
Andy Burnham has finally decided to go where previous Labour leaders have feared to tread. Namely the White Cliffs of Dover, to announce the French farce which has seen the British taxpayer handing £160million to Emmanuel Macron to stop the small boats – only to see them being waved off by Gendarmes from the beaches of Calais with a cheery ‘Bon Voyage’ – will finally end.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister defiantly declared that he would be ‘relentless’ in confronting the Channel crisis. ‘The public don’t like the idea that the border looks like it’s not controlled. We need to bring back that control.’
A senior aide spelt out what that meant in practice: ‘The bottom line is payment by results. If certain tactics aren’t working, the funding stops.’
This bold rhetoric stands in stark contrast to his immediate predecessors. Keir Starmer’s premiership began to properly fall apart after he admitted his infamous statement that Britain was becoming an ‘island of strangers’ was one that had been inserted into a speech by his aides and been delivered without him even bothering to read it. The tough immigration policy it was meant to frame was also quickly disowned.
Jeremy Corbyn believed robust immigration rules were anathema to his socialist principles. And the closest Ed Miliband got to getting to grips with the issue was to put the word, ‘Controls On Immigration’, on the side of a mug.
So Burnham’s statement yesterday, though typically short on detail, marks a significant departure for his party. His critics will claim – with some justification – he has been forced to speak out by recent events.
Last week, Tory Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp was subjected to a hostile intervention from a French coastguard cutter, which unleashed a few live rounds as part of a ‘training exercise’ as he attempted to highlight a surge in small-boat arrivals.
And the dramatic incursion into the Spanish territory of Ceuta by 60,000 illegal migrants from Morocco highlighted Europe’s widening migration crisis.
Andy Burnham yesterday during a visit to HM Coastguard Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Dover
The Prime Minister defiantly declared that he would be ‘relentless’ in confronting the Channel crisis
