Andy Burnham’s immigration double game

Andy Burnham’s path back to Westminster has real historical resonance. If he secures Makerfield and, eventually, replaces Keir Starmer, he will end a regional drought lasting more than a century. He will become the first Greater Manchester MP to lead the country since Arthur Balfour in 1905.

That milestone would be vindication for a lifetime spent fidgeting in the confines of the establishment. As a young Evertonian from the outskirts of Liverpool, Burnham has never entirely felt at home among England’s ruling class. His arrival at Cambridge in 1988 was a rude awakening, exposing him to posh students who, in his own words, spent their time “talking complete rubbish”.

That northern identity has become central to Burnham’s political brand, wrapped up in the idea of “Manchesterism” — a rather quaint creed that mixes local democracy with business-friendly socialism. In one recent campaign video, Burnham tours Greater Manchester, needling the legacy of Margaret Thatcher while showcasing the city’s glass skyscrapers and modern transport network.

Yet beneath the northern patriotism lies a man far closer to the London elite than he would ever like to admit. Nowhere is that contradiction clearer than on immigration, an issue where Burnham has long looked suspect. Little wonder Reform UK have already slapped him with the nickname “open-borders Andy”.

Now, according to the Guardian, Burnham’s allies are confident he will back tough immigration measures from Labour Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, including ending the automatic route to permanent refugee status.

But do not mistake this for a real shift in Burnham’s convictions. First, this is not coming from the man himself. It comes from anonymous allies, who — as is natural in times like these — may be spinning half-truths in an effort to toughen his image ahead of a difficult political campaign. Second, some of Burnham’s closest allies, including Sarah Owen MP, have been openly hostile to Mahmood’s reforms.

Most important of all, there is a gulf between applauding tough rhetoric on immigration and actually delivering tough policies in office. Westminster is littered with politicians who talk a hard game at election time, only to melt back into managerial mush the moment they get their hands on power.

Burnham has spent years presenting himself as a sensible moderate on border control. But when he served as Shadow Home Secretary back in 2015, he showed just how slippery those instincts really are.

During this period, Burnham went head-to-head with Theresa May over her flagship Immigration Bill. It was a piece of legislation intended to create a “hostile environment” for those flouting British borders by closing loopholes in housing, banking, and licensing.

Rather than supporting this tightening of the British system, Burnham rejected the bulk of the enforcement measures. He used human-interest excuses about “discrimination” to shield illegal households from the full force of the law. It was a classic display of throwing tenuous moral and procedural obstacles into the path of progress.

What was also striking about this debate was Burnham’s shaky grasp of the evidence surrounding his own brief. At one stage, he interrupted Theresa May to challenge her claim that the overall economic impact of migration was “close to zero”. May immediately corrected him, pointing out that the fiscal benefit was marginal at best. But Burnham refused to retreat. Instead, he doubled down: 

That migrants contribute more to the public purse than they take out is a simple fact that cannot be repeated often enough in debates such as this.

Sadly, no. The consensus on pre-Brexit immigration was not that it delivered a windfall to the Treasury, but that its fiscal impact sat at around +/- 1 per cent of GDP — broadly neutral in national terms. Yet Burnham spoke as though the matter had been settled beyond dispute. Immigration, in his telling, was simply an unquestionable economic good.

He then escalated the argument, extending it beyond economic migrants to refugees. He stated, without evidence: 

Overall, refugees tend to be younger and not to have dependants. Consequently, the figures I gave at the beginning, which show that they net contribute, rather than take out of the public purse, must be borne in mind when we engage in a debate of this kind.

Burnham’s claim does not stand up to scrutiny. Just 56 per cent of working-age refugees are in employment, compared with 75 per cent of the UK-born population. When they do find employment, earnings lag significantly — £20,000 for men and £18,000 for women, compared with £31,000 and £22,000 respectively for the UK-born.

Another striking thing about Burnham is how slippery he can be with language. One moment he sounds tough, ready for action — the next he is retreating into watchful qualifications and fussy tone policing. 

During the debate on the Immigration Bill, Scottish nationalist MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh challenged him over Labour’s infamous “Controls on immigration” mug — a piece of Labour merchandise sold during the 2015 election. Burnham’s response was revealing: “I did not purchase one of those mugs and I am not particularly proud of them.” Why this fairly innocuous red mug provoked such outrage in 2015 is hard to understand. What mattered more was Burnham’s obvious discomfort with a slogan he himself had long supported.

More telling still was Burnham’s assertion that diversity is overwhelmingly a good thing for Britain. He went on to repeat the familiar claim that Britain is, in essence, a nation of immigrants, saying: 

The culture and identity of our country — for centuries an open, outward-looking, seafaring nation — has itself been shaped by centuries of inward immigration, and it is all the richer for it.

None of this is especially surprising given Burnham’s embrace of state multiculturalism. In the past, he has pushed for a censorious definition of “Islamophobia” while accusing senior Tories of being too harsh on radical Islam. He even compared the government’s anti-extremist Prevent programme to the internment of IRA suspects in Northern Ireland, claiming it unfairly singles out Muslims

In his defence, Burnham has not always ignored the downsides of migration. For years, he spoke about “firm and fair controls” on European migrants, while also recognising the public’s anger over jobs, wages, and housing. In the 2015 Labour leadership contest, he popularised the line that “freedom to work is not the same as freedom to claim,” and backed tighter restrictions on access to welfare.

It seems improbable that this rhetoric will ever shape reality

Yet it seems improbable that this rhetoric will ever shape reality. Burnham’s stated preference for “firm and fair controls” sits uneasily with his record when faced with concrete policy choices.

Back in November 2025, he urged the government to drop plans that would force asylum seekers to wait up to 20 years for permanent settlement, framing his objection in humanitarian terms. 

Then, in March 2026, Burnham backed Angela Rayner’s attack on Shabana Mahmood’s proposals to tighten “Indefinite Leave to Remain” — measures designed to slow permanent settlement and limit automatic access to welfare for hundreds of thousands of migrants. 

If the anonymous leaks are true and Burnham really is preparing yet another U-turn, nobody should take it at face value. A man with ambitions as big as his is hardly going to hand Reform UK easy ammunition on the doorsteps of Makerfield. If he wins his seat and succeeds in replacing Starmer, Burnham will arrive in Downing Street as a creature of the very London-centric system he claims to oppose.