Burnham unopposed & likely to be PM by mid July

Why on earth would a husband or father risk their loved ones in such a way?

Irresponsible doesn’t begin to describe such actions.

Pleased to hear no one died during the hazardous crossing.

Which news source are you using? I ask only because, having searched high and low, nothing is appearing.

A mega-dinghy carrying 128 migrants has crossed the Channel, setting a new record for the number of arrivals on a single small boat.

Including 97 on two other dinghies, a total of 225 migrants made the journey on Friday.

It wasn't you who brought it up.

And yes it is something Burnham will have to address

Also I only brought up immigration because the British electorate seem to care about cost of living, economy and immigration most, followed by NHS and then infrastructure.
So Andy Burnham will have to deal with immigration as well as cost of living.

Good @Araminta1003 , we agree

No @hedgeknight - I think plenty of people want reasonable asylum figures which looking back 20 years would be 50000-60000. I would much rather we had a reliable processing system from abroad giving asylum to children and women from eg Gaza than men from Pakistan trying to convert their lapsed work visas into asylum claims and clogging up the system. I completely understand on a human level why they would want to stay given large communities here, but I do not think that is what the asylum system is meant for. Same with study visas - unless their country is suddenly a war zone it should be an automatic no.
Also if you look at the asylum figures for Germany and France - if eg they have a huge percentage of Afghanistan last year but are now working with the Afghani “government” on returns, but we are not, it is pretty clear that we are going to end up with a lot of Afghani men.

It's difficult to disagree with her advice of be clear and have a worked through plan.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwykdvgv4d4o

Ok, I see what you mean with overlap.

And yes, I know they are gov statistics

A few more details on those numbers.

Work Visas: 38% (13,994 people)
Study Visas: 30% (10,835 people)
Visitor Visas (including ETAs): 19% (7,048 people)
Other Forms of Leave: 13% (4,834 people) 1]

Incl graph showing that asylum claim numbers are coming down.

I hope this is not becoming another anti asylum seekers thread.

Look at the figures for Pakistan.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-march-2026/how-many-people-claim-asylum-in-the-uk

Overlap migrants and asylum seekers. Number of migrants then claiming asylum if their visa is not extended is up 16%. Those are Government statistics.

Overlap with what?

I think there is some rumour going around of an AB emergency budget. If that is true, and she is warning him, it may be well intentioned and she does not want him to crash and burn faster than the lettuce did.

I think he just needs to get in now - all this speculation is completely tedious and all these people trying to influence their ideologies from afar.

I see that yet another MP has taken to the air to “warn” AB. Reeves this time, who I hope they sweep away.

42 per cent small boats.

There is overlap I am afraid.

• 39% (36,711) of asylum seekers had previously entered the UK on a visa or other leave with relevant documentation, including those who entered on an electronic travel authorisation (ETA)

Asylum seekers are different to migrants.

They need to live somewhere.

The government is looking at different possibilities as did the previous one.

The scaremongering about council houses and benefits is right wing rhetoric

As is the 'low skilled Brits getting off their arse' argument.

The UK needs controlled immigration, both high and low skilled.

It was not just a right wing rhetoric - there was a plan to build council housing to house asylum seekers instead of in hotels and it was abandoned due to cost.

If a lot of them are stuck in camps in Calais, but here you give hotel or a proper house etc - then you are literally incentivising them to make a perilous journey. That is just common sense. So the only thing you can do is stick them in similar military camps and process it far faster. There are just shy of 100k asylum seekers stuck in the system. That is a huge amount.

As regards migrants and their visas, again I think it is fair enough for it to take a long time to claim benefits but what I do not want is to deter people with very good intentions by racist rhetoric.
As those in charge keep flip flopping around - it is toxic for all. Their job is to reach cross party consensus based on common sense and in the best interests of the country economically and morally and in a long term manner. The judges just have to follow the law. If they fail to legislate clearly, then we have a toxic status quo that the media will manipulate.

In many areas we don't need low skill immigrants - we need low skilled Brits to get off their arses and go to work.

It is the same in the UK

But you are aware that council house and benefits is very much a right wing rhetoric?

I have no problem with selective immigration just with the narrative that low skilled is bad and high skilled is good.

We need a mix of both.

And really I think it is a principle point. If you emigrate to most other countries as a British citizen, you are expected to be self sustaining for a pretty long time in most countries and it usually also means you are treated as a second class citizen until you have proved yourself and learnt the language skills, adapted, did some citizenship test and proved yourself as a good one they would actually want in their society.

@hedgeknight - most people do not have a problem with low skilled immigrants who work full time and have 2 full time workers. They only have an issue with those low skilled immigrants who get the council houses and UC top ups and all sorts of benefits. If they are genuinely full time working and contributing and not claiming any extras, they are usually most welcome.