After all the infighting and backbiting over the past few months, Andy Burnham revealed on Monday that the grand plan for his impending premiership will be more devolution.
That’s right. The great cure-all for our country’s ills is more politicians, more bureaucracy and yet more handsomely paid jobs for the boys and girls in the public sector.
Is that really what voters are crying out for? There’s a good argument that devolution has already made their lives considerably worse.
Just think about it. Has devolution in London in the shape of Mayor Sadiq Khan given us safer streets in the capital? Has devolution north of the border cleaned up Scottish politics? Or, for that matter, has a devolved Wales after a quarter of a century of Labour given the Welsh a better health service or better education service?
No. In fact, it’s given them the worst in the whole of the United Kingdom. For Burnham to spend his first major speech waffling on about it only proved he has absolutely no plan to tackle the fundamental and, frankly, existential problems our country faces.
It is simply astonishing, for example, that he said absolutely nothing about immigration. Only this week we learnt from the Home Office there were 34,400 asylum cases granted last year under Article 8 of the European Convention - the so-called “right to a family life”. Thanks to this outrageous loophole in our legal system, this will end up costing the British taxpayer £5 billion. And yet we keep hearing from this government that there’s no room for cuts!
The situation is clearly untenable. Yet amazingly under Open Borders Burnham it can only get worse. He wants to tear up Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s plans to delay the Boriswave becoming eligible for Indefinite Leave to Remain. That would mean up to 2.2 million immigrants who arrived from outside the EU gaining permanent residence, full access to benefits and the right to social housing in the coming years.
On top of that, he remains committed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which as Reform UK has repeatedly argued remains an impediment to solving the small boats crisis. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch now claims she wants to leave the ECHR. But after 14 years of Tory rule, why should we trust them to do so now?
Nor was there so much as a peep from Burnham about how to solve our spiralling national debt. As it stands our annual debt interest repayments are £110 billion a year, which dwarf both our defence and education budgets. Our debt has grown faster than every country except Botswana.
Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch bleats on about how indebted the country is. But all that Reeves and Starmer have done is top up a problem that they inherited from the Conservatives.
And what about the nightmare, embarrassing and shaming position that we’ve gotten into with our defence?
In March, a British sovereign air base in Cyprus came under rocket attack yet it took three weeks to get a Royal Navy vessel there. Three days later, that destroyer broke down. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so serious. Even worse has been the absolutely shameful persecution of British veterans for events which in many cases occurred over half a century ago.
Does Mr Burnham even understand any of this? I doubt it.
But then there’s an awful lot we don’t know about Andy Burnham. He’s about to become prime minister via the backdoor yet we have next to no clue as to what he plans to do with the country. He wasn’t even an MP when Labour stood on its 2024 manifesto. In short, he has no mandate.
Instead, he asks us all to give him 10 years to transform Britain. Well, I’m sorry, but we haven’t got 10 years. Unless we act soon we won’t have a country left. Which is why we need a general election as soon as possible to sort out who is running the country.
Given this is the seventh prime minister in 10 years, I would say the British public has had enough of the game of musical chairs that has been going on in Downing Street.
Strangely, the Conservatives don’t think so. James Cleverly said as much on television recently, claiming it would cause more uncertainty. The real reason I suspect is that the Conservatives would rather Labour remained in post than a Reform UK government.
The truth is neither Andy Burnham nor Kemi Badenoch are willing to admit the fact that Britain is broken because their parties are the ones who broke it. This shows neither is capable of tackling the challenges we face.
Because unless you’re prepared to diagnose how grave the situation is, you’re not prepared to perform the radical surgery required to save the patient.
Well, let me be clear when I say Britain is broken. And only Reform UK can fix it.
That’s right. The great cure-all for our country’s ills is more politicians, more bureaucracy and yet more handsomely paid jobs for the boys and girls in the public sector.
Is that really what voters are crying out for? There’s a good argument that devolution has already made their lives considerably worse.
Just think about it. Has devolution in London in the shape of Mayor Sadiq Khan given us safer streets in the capital? Has devolution north of the border cleaned up Scottish politics? Or, for that matter, has a devolved Wales after a quarter of a century of Labour given the Welsh a better health service or better education service?
No. In fact, it’s given them the worst in the whole of the United Kingdom. For Burnham to spend his first major speech waffling on about it only proved he has absolutely no plan to tackle the fundamental and, frankly, existential problems our country faces.
It is simply astonishing, for example, that he said absolutely nothing about immigration. Only this week we learnt from the Home Office there were 34,400 asylum cases granted last year under Article 8 of the European Convention - the so-called “right to a family life”. Thanks to this outrageous loophole in our legal system, this will end up costing the British taxpayer £5 billion. And yet we keep hearing from this government that there’s no room for cuts!
The situation is clearly untenable. Yet amazingly under Open Borders Burnham it can only get worse. He wants to tear up Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s plans to delay the Boriswave becoming eligible for Indefinite Leave to Remain. That would mean up to 2.2 million immigrants who arrived from outside the EU gaining permanent residence, full access to benefits and the right to social housing in the coming years.
On top of that, he remains committed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which as Reform UK has repeatedly argued remains an impediment to solving the small boats crisis. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch now claims she wants to leave the ECHR. But after 14 years of Tory rule, why should we trust them to do so now?
Nor was there so much as a peep from Burnham about how to solve our spiralling national debt. As it stands our annual debt interest repayments are £110 billion a year, which dwarf both our defence and education budgets. Our debt has grown faster than every country except Botswana.
Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch bleats on about how indebted the country is. But all that Reeves and Starmer have done is top up a problem that they inherited from the Conservatives.
And what about the nightmare, embarrassing and shaming position that we’ve gotten into with our defence?
In March, a British sovereign air base in Cyprus came under rocket attack yet it took three weeks to get a Royal Navy vessel there. Three days later, that destroyer broke down. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so serious. Even worse has been the absolutely shameful persecution of British veterans for events which in many cases occurred over half a century ago.
Does Mr Burnham even understand any of this? I doubt it.
But then there’s an awful lot we don’t know about Andy Burnham. He’s about to become prime minister via the backdoor yet we have next to no clue as to what he plans to do with the country. He wasn’t even an MP when Labour stood on its 2024 manifesto. In short, he has no mandate.
Instead, he asks us all to give him 10 years to transform Britain. Well, I’m sorry, but we haven’t got 10 years. Unless we act soon we won’t have a country left. Which is why we need a general election as soon as possible to sort out who is running the country.
Given this is the seventh prime minister in 10 years, I would say the British public has had enough of the game of musical chairs that has been going on in Downing Street.
Strangely, the Conservatives don’t think so. James Cleverly said as much on television recently, claiming it would cause more uncertainty. The real reason I suspect is that the Conservatives would rather Labour remained in post than a Reform UK government.
The truth is neither Andy Burnham nor Kemi Badenoch are willing to admit the fact that Britain is broken because their parties are the ones who broke it. This shows neither is capable of tackling the challenges we face.
Because unless you’re prepared to diagnose how grave the situation is, you’re not prepared to perform the radical surgery required to save the patient.
Well, let me be clear when I say Britain is broken. And only Reform UK can fix it.
(This is a slightly edited version of an article published in the Daily Telegraph on 30th June.)
Picture by: House of Commons.
