Burnham told GB News that “all parts of the country need to work, to play their part”, and ministers are reportedly considering lifting the caps on what the Home Office pays landlords, so asylum housing can reach dearer postcodes. The strain spreads to the shires. The bill stays with the public.
Trump showed what happens when a government treats a border as its own responsibility. He did not ask permission from foreign capitals before enforcing American law. Burnham, by contrast, told the Sunday Times: “I am positive about closer ties with Europe and I’m not hiding that.” Closer ties, he added, would “give us stronger control of migration”.
Britons voted to leave the EU so their own Parliament could run their borders. At the Brussels summit on 20 November, the agenda Burnham himself announced puts food and drink, energy, emissions trading and a youth scheme first, and “deeper co-operation on immigration” last. None of it is a returns deal.
That is the difference. Trump used the powers of his office to make illegal entry harder, costlier and less attractive. Burnham has produced a vocabulary of compassion, partnership and process. What Britain has received instead is 10,139 arrivals, a rising bill, and a promise to be “relentless” at some unspecified future date.