Kind of a rocky start for the amiable Andy Burnham in his first few weeks as prime minister.
Besides all that's wrong with the world at large, at home, his nascent Labour cabinet just can't seem to get out of its own way on the housing issue for the unwelcome and uninvited hordes of channel-crossing immigrants that keep appearing on British beaches - or rescued by British vessels - no matter what he claims he's done.
Someone, somewhere, has gotten the word to these people on the beach in France that the welcome sign is lit and Burnham has done nothing to disabuse any of them of the idea that the opposite is true.
An illegal migrant has landed on Britain’s shores every 14 mins under this government.
— Centre for Migration Control (@migrationCtrl) August 13, 2026
This does not include visa overstayers.
A startling figure which shows just how dismal the Home Office’s removal & deportation record actually is. https://t.co/yAWSR2JlvE
As for where these boat people go once they hit the honeyed British shores, it has also been a source of continuing angst among residents of the United Kingdom. In spite of Burnham's lip service to, pardon the expression, 'spreading the wealth' of migrants to wealthier enclaves...
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has suggested that wealthier areas of the UK should house more asylum seekers.
"We cannot have a situation where it's only the poorest communities in the country that receive all of the dispersal of refugees and asylum seekers," he told GB News on Tuesday.
His comments came in response to a question about protests which have taken place in the village of Piddington, Oxfordshire over plans to provide accommodation for asylum seekers on a nearby former military base.
...he is going ahead with previous plans to flood several tiny communities with his arrivals.
And by tiny, I mean T-I-N-Y.
🚨NEWS: The tiny village of Piddington is set to receive its first illegal migrants housed nearby
— Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) August 12, 2026
The village has approx. 300 adults and 50 children
They're receiving 1,250 fighting age 3rd world males
God help them pic.twitter.com/PTCtDEYAzU
For scale, this is Piddington vs what the government is moving in next door.
Piddington, a village of around 350 residents where 63% are women and children is set to see 1,250 male migrants house nearby. pic.twitter.com/qyARr9jCxJ
— Migrant Tracker UK (@MigrantTrackUK) August 16, 2026
Burnham, as a classic progressive globalist, has it exactly backward. He is exhorting and chiding everyone in the UK that they must 'do their part' in housing these illegal invaders.
..."I do believe all parts of the country need to work, to play their part. It's a challenging issue.
Anna Turley, Burnham's immigration minister, says very graciously that the Labour government won't be asking anyone to take any more than 'their fair share.'
..."I think this is about fairness and we won't be asking anybody to take more than they can, and we won't be asking anyone to take more than their fair share," she said.
"What we've seen in the past is places like Blackpool, and other communities around the country where housing is perhaps cheaper and more plentiful, have had to take more than their fair share of asylum seekers," she added.
"That's put a huge burden on local communities and created real civil unrest, so we want to make sure that we're managing the system much better in a more sustained way that's reducing the impact on local communities.
"It's important that everybody plays their fair share in that, and it's about making sure that no one community is more over-pressured or overburdened than others."
Well, how very decent of her.
But you know what the actual fair share of 'illegal immigrants' foisted on the good people of Britain should be?
ZERO
Because they should either never make it to a beach, or, if they manage that, they should be gone - GONE - within a set timeframe.
...In response to Burnham's interview, Philp reiterated the Conservatives' policy of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights in order to deport migrants to their country of origin or a safe third country.
"Andy Burnham just doesn't get it," he wrote on X.
"Illegal immigrants should all be deported within a week of arrival - to their country of origin or a safe third country like Rwanda."
For all that Burnham made noises at Piddington, they are getting their population increase, but a tactical change on the boat situation.
🚨🇬🇧Andy Burnham coldly DISMISSES village's PLEA: “All parts of the country need to play their part.”
— Global Dissident (@GlobalDiss) August 12, 2026
Locals in Piddington – just 300 people – begged not to house 1,250 migrants next door.
Get Labour and the invaders out! pic.twitter.com/bMACZgvqVd
Cold comfort there, poor Piddly Piddington. You'll just have to suck it up, possible brothel and all.
Too bad, so sad.
🇬🇧 1,250 ILLEGAL MIGRANT MEN next to a UK village Piddington of 350.
— Lenka White (@white_lenka) August 14, 2026
The site for immigrants would hold 3 times the village’s entire population.
65% are women and children.
A former government minister is openly talking about a BROTHEL as the “obvious” response to putting… pic.twitter.com/YIKB9nOFoC
As if that continuing insult to injury weren't enough, Angela Rayner, the housing secretary of little renown, has started a huge brouhaha with town councils by publishing her reworked planning rules.
There's a group loosely called 'The Travellers' in the UK that has had an uneasy relationship with local jurisdictions since basically time immemorial. The Gypsy, Roma, and Travellers (GRT) are mostly nomadic, caravanning tribal types (all over Europe, for that matter, with many offshoots in the US as well) who make their way across the landscape. Many do settle in their own insular sections of certain areas, but they never really assimilate well, as they maintain their traditions and culture ferociously.
It has led to a constant and long-running state of tension, and many incidents of vicious hate crimes against GRT when they have alighted in a community.
Many of them are recognized as ethnic groups under UK law, and as such, protected under the hate crime statute.
The term ‘Gypsies and Travellers’ is difficult to define as it does not constitute a single, homogenous group, but encompasses a range of groups with different histories, cultures and beliefs including: Romany Gypsies, Welsh Gypsies, Scottish Gypsy Travellers and Irish Travellers. There are also Traveller groups which are generally regarded as ‘cultural’ rather than ‘ethnic’ Travellers. These include ‘New’ (Age) Travellers and occupational travellers, such as showmen and waterway travellers.
...The Equality Act 2010 protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. Romany Gypsies, Scottish Travellers and Irish Travellers have been declared by the courts to be protected as “races” under the Act.
Nevertheless, Gypsies and Travellers continue to face high levels of racial discrimination, contributing to and exacerbating the inequalities they experience.
They also have specific protections when it comes to setting up a caravan in a town, and that's where the wickets get sticky between the law-abiding citizens of any given city and the arriving nomads with the less-than-savory and not altogether undeserved reputation for bringing some trouble with them, although mostly of the non-violent, larcenous kind. In the year running from April of 2022 to March of 2023, Gypsy or Irish Travelers accounted for 17.2 out of every 1000 arrests. They are only about 0.6% of the population, but the arrest rate is significant enough that they have their own category.
To be honest, this and their tribal nature have contributed to the clash of cultures. Again, since forever.
There are myriad rules for dealing with an unexpected Traveller encampment that city councils have had to follow, as they are a protected group, but at least there were some strictures citizens could enforce without running afoul of the protections the GRT groups have.
They were still pretty nebulous, though.
Watch this report from just this past April, when a Traveller caravan showed up in a field in the middle of the night in a village called Alford, in Surrey. It's really an amazing encounter.
Where they once had horse-drawn wagons, they now have travel trailers pulled by what looks to be vans, and perhaps a Range Rover.
And they are surly when quizzed.
So take the obvious frustration on the face of the poor fellow who is being interviewed - he can't say he doesn't want them there, because then he's being racist. But he can say they don't belong and should leave, but he seems not to be able to do a thing about it.
Now multiply that by councils and private property owners all over the UK, times what could be coming, thanks to Housing Secretary Rayner's new rules, smack in the middle of what could be termed a Traveller surge,
Rayner paves way for more traveller sites
Housing Secretary removes key rules used by residents and councils to block illegal encampments
Angela Rayner has softened planning rules for traveller sites, giving councils fewer ways to block them.
The Housing Secretary has removed two key rules that councils and residents have used to oppose unauthorised traveller camps.
She made the changes in an update to England’s planning rules on Monday, which also paved the way for more development of the green belt.
The Tories claimed the reforms meant more communities would be “forced to tolerate lawbreaking from a small minority of travellers”.
However, the Government insisted that overall the rules still gave councils the powers they needed.
There has been a 73 per cent rise in the number of unauthorised traveller caravans across England since January 2020, up from 2,860 to 4,950.
WHY DOES LABOUR HATE THE BRITISH PROPERTY OWNER?
...Sir James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, said: “Communities across the country are being forced to tolerate lawbreaking from a small minority of travellers.
“But instead of siding with those who play by the rules, Labour are making it easier for travellers to set up illegal sites and get them rubber-stamped afterwards – often when they’ve already erected permanent structures.”
And just so you know that Burnham's government is as completely pathetic as Starmer's and every progressive elected official ever was, the official excuse for this complete housing disaster is?
TRUMP
...Meanwhile, Matthew Pennycook, Ms Rayner’s deputy, blamed the war in Iran for the Government lagging behind its target.
He said the downturn in house-building “has been made worse by the conflict in Iran and, as a result largely of that conflict, but not entirely, we’re seeing dampening demand”.
I don't know that Burnham is going to make it through the over two and a half years he has until the next scheduled election.
Perhaps if he can stuff enough North Africans and Travellers in the smaller nooks and crannies of the country to overwhelm the local populace in the next six months, he can pull it off.
I don't see where he's not going to try to.
Everybody has to take their fair share, you know. Labour abuse or immigrants next door - it's all the same-same.
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