So there we go. Burnham has ruled out a General Election. The pasty-faced coward is going to limp on, without a mandate, for three more years – when it is becoming clearer with every passing day that Labour simply cannot and will not rise to the challenge of the moment.
They will not do what the British people want. They can’t fix the economy and they don’t seem to understand the levels of public fury and disgust at what is happening in the English Channel.
I don’t know how you felt when you saw the pictures of that little boy floating in the sea off France.
The man thought to be the toddler’s father had abandoned him a few moments previously so that he – fit and young – could clamber aboard a bursting dinghy, and make the crossing to England.
As I thought about the terror of that child, I actually shouted with anger; not just at the man, for his callousness, but at every part of the woke, spavined, enfeebled system of Labour-run government that is allowing this catastrophe to continue.
They are the wrong government for the crisis we face – and if Andy Burnham had any intellectual honesty, he would give the public a choice and call an election as fast as possible.
Labour MPs are incapable of dealing with the problem of illegal immigration, because deep in their Lefty hearts they are on the side of illegal immigrants
If he had an ounce of guts, or a plan, he would do what I did in his position – and go to the country before Christmas.
We need a new government that will do what Labour MPs will never vote for.
We need a government that will end the small boats crisis, and kill this trade stone dead; and there is one good way to do it. It is to make clear to everyone proposing to come illegally to the UK that they will be deported – instantly – to an African country, thousands of miles away, where their application will be processed.
Yes, it’s time to bring back Rwanda; because it is an excellent policy, and having chaired innumerable meetings with Border Force, the Coastguard and the armed services – it is the only policy that will genuinely stop the boats.
It is just no use asking the Royal Navy to ram or in any way interfere with heavily laden and unseaworthy vessels in the rough waters of the English Channel. They will not nudge those vessels back to France, or block their path – because whatever politicians may tell them to do, they are mariners first and foremost, which means they are trained to obey the law of the sea; and they will not endanger innocent life.
Some of our party political leaders might now talk a good game, and claim they would just order the Armed Forces physically to impede the boats: sink ’em, smash ’em, slash ’em, etc.
They would change their tune with the first pictures of a dead child on the beaches of France, drowned by the actions of the Royal Navy.
It ain’t going to happen.
It is also a complete myth that we could round all these people up, once they have landed in the UK, and just ferry them back to the Continent.
Well, we could certainly round them up, and we could certainly carry them back across the Channel – but we could not just unload them on French beaches; not without French agreement – and the most we have got them to agree is the hopeless and expensive ‘one in one out’ policy, which itself seems about to collapse.
In the small watches of the night, when I was wrestling with this problem, I used to fantasise about recapturing Calais, after 500 years, and turning it back into an English enclave, but it would be expensive and difficult, and put terminal strain on Nato.
The Rwanda policy had been worked on for many months; we had shown the UK media the accommodation the illegal arrivals could expect in Rwanda (and very comfortable it was)
No, much as it might delight some of this great paper’s readership, a war with France is not the right answer, and it is not necessary. The Rwanda policy had been worked on for many months; we had the complete agreement of Kigali; we had shown the UK media the accommodation the illegal arrivals could expect in Rwanda (and very comfortable it was), and we finally passed all the legislation to reassure the courts about the safety of the scheme.
So it was a tragedy that we Tories called an early election, when the legal tests had been met, but before the first flight had gone.
It was hard to campaign on Rwanda, after all, when the plan had not yet been delivered.
Having duly won, Starmer promptly cancelled the Rwanda policy, at huge expense, on the pathetic and frankly racist grounds that he found it distasteful to send would-be illegal immigrants to be processed in an African country.
Labour has been living with the consequences ever since.
If there is one thing that has toxified British politics, it is the sight of thousands of illegal immigrants continuing to come across the Channel, showing complete contempt for the wishes of the British people and the efforts of the UK government to stop them.
That’s why we have these ludicrous ethno-nationalist parties on the Right of politics (who were on about zero per cent, never forget, when I was PM). When Labour chucked Rwanda, they threw away the defences of the British people against illegal immigrants, and it is no wonder the public is so angry.
I blame Starmer, and I blame Burnham, because he seems if anything to be even wetter and more hopeless.
Labour MPs are incapable of dealing with the problem of illegal immigration, because deep in their Lefty hearts they are on the side of illegal immigrants. They don’t really want immigrants sent back anywhere, and they believe the Rwanda scheme is fundamentally cruel.
They are wrong, of course.
The really cruel thing is to allow tiny children to struggle for life in the cold sea.
Labour have had two years and two leaders, and it is clear that they just can’t do the job.
Why are we facing yet another fiscal crisis? Why is John Healey threatening to put up taxes yet again, when businesses and families have already taken such a hammering? It’s because Labour MPs simply won’t do the right thing, and cut public spending. They won’t cut the ballooning welfare budget, which is now costing more than £100billion for disability and personal independence payments – even though much of this cash is now going on absurd claims for ‘anxiety’ and other such malarkey.
They don’t dare cut a penny in welfare, because most Labour MPs are fully aware that the number of PIP claimants in their constituencies is bigger than their majorities; and so the country is stuck.
Welfare spending continues to rise, and debt continues to rise, and to finance that debt the bond markets demand higher interest rates. The only way Chancellor Healey (amazing isn’t it?) can keep the bond markets at bay is with higher taxes, and so talented wealth creators flee in an accelerating roar, while penniless illegals flood in.
It’s a disaster, and it can all be traced to Labour ideology. Burnham has no mandate from the people. He has no real ideas, and no plan.
His party is ideologically and temperamentally incapable of doing what the country needs. It is time for the manscara-ed Mancunian to man the hell up and call an election.
He won’t because he is scared – and because it is increasingly likely, in my view, that Kemi Badenoch would win.