Burnham ‘to support’ Mahmood’s racist immigration changes

Allies of Greater Manchester mayor and Makerfield by-election hopeful Andy Burnham say he’s backing home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s racist changes to immigration.

The Makerfield area is dominated by far-right ‘Reform UK’ since the May 2026 local elections. Furthermore, Reform’s candidate is a barely-closeted extremist. Burnham’s associates say their man regards immigration is a “moral issue.”

Scrapping ‘leave to remain’

Mahmood’s planned changes include removing the current five-year ‘leave to remain’ for refugees. She also wants to force a ‘review’ of status every thirty months. At the same time, she intends to increase the length of residency required to be able to apply for “settled status” from five years to ten. She also plans to remove financial support for refugees. However, she still does not guarantee them the right to work.

An unnamed source fed the Guardian the classic Blairite-line that being “positive” about migrants can only happen if controls on immigration are strict:

We need to tell a positive story about the contribution of migration to our country, but we cannot do that unless people trust that the people they vote for have control over our borders.

Mahmood’s plan is not merely strict, though — it’s punitive, racist, and Trumpian.

More of the same

Burnham is clearly trying to win in Makerfield. Doing it by pandering to the racist views of Reform voters on immigration is wrong. Declining to put forward any significant changes to the deeply-hated regime he wants to replace is morally and politically bankrupt.

Copying Starmer’s attempts to ‘out-Reform Reform’ is doomed. Both may well cost him the Labour voters he still needs. This is especially risky as the Greens are standing.

Burnham is far more personable than the appalling — and boring — Keir Starmer and will hammer him if the pair contest a leadership election. But “same as before but with personality” means that even if he somehow wins, the UK will have no real change at all.

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