Sir Keir Starmer failed on many fronts, and especially on immigration, and is now paying the price. He never got a grip as Prime Minister and has been turfed out of No 10. Newly elected Member of Parliament for Makerfield, Andy Burnham, is now almost certainly going to be crowned leader of the Labour Party and be installed as Prime Minister within a couple of weeks or so.
But on the key issues of immigration and accelerating demographic change, what does Mr Burnham have in mind?
He spent the past year as Mayor of Manchester tilting from one position to another. Like a chameleon, his migration stance has a remarkable habit of matching whatever backdrop he happens to be standing against.
Take “No Recourse to Public Funds” (NRPF), a prerequisite for most UK visas, ensuring there is no access to welfare and social services for recently-arrived migrants. As recently as 2023, Mr Burnham was signing letters demanding the policy be scrapped, meaning new arrivals could immediately use the NHS, council housing and Universal Credit before contributing a penny. Today, with the political wind blowing the other way, he claims he has changed his mind, and now supports retaining NRPF. This is a billion pound question for the British taxpayer – which Burnham are we getting?
Then there is settlement. Plans from the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, to double the qualifying period for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) from five years to ten, and to strip indefinite status from refugees, are a sensible step towards a realistic immigration policy. ILR status is the first stage for acquiring British citizenship, which again opens up access to a whole raft of benefits and welfare. During his campaign in Makerfield, Burnham said he “supports the broad thrust” of ILR reform. Yet just a few weeks later, we are told he is considering ditching Mahmood’s plans and allowing huge numbers of migrants who arrived under the so-called Boriswave to continue applying for ILR. This is a billion pound question for the British taxpayer – so which is it to be, Mr Burnham?
In 2016, he said free movement with the European Union was used to undermine wages; in 2025, he said he wanted Britain to rejoin the European Union, requiring acceptance of free movement. In 2015, he implied it was racist to require landlords to check whether their tenants were in the UK legally; in 2018, he threatened to cease accepting asylum seekers, many of whom enter the UK illegally, as he felt Manchester had a disproportionate share. In 2015, he vigorously opposed efforts to expand the use of immigration detention; in 2026, he pledged to expand the use of immigration detention.
This too is a billion pound question for the British taxpayer, tell us what is it to be, Mr Burnham.
What changed? Not the evidence. What changed was Makerfield, where, by Andy Burnham’s own account, voters “raised their concerns about immigration” on the doorstep. Guess what Mr Burnham, these concerns are not new and are not restricted to the voters of Makerfield. The majority of voters in the UK have long held the same views and harboured the same concerns. It is largely why they voted as they did in 2016.
Which Andy Burnham will we be getting, the recently enlightened one or the old leopard with the same spots? On immigration, we fear it will be the latter.
