𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Andy Burnham’s asylum assault on Middle England is the spark that will finally bring the small boats crisis to a head.

Our new Prime Minister’s desire for fairness means he wants every part of the country to take illegal migrants, even the pretty countryside villages.

It is the wake up call this country needs. For too long, young undocumented have been dumped in former industrial towns.

When the locals protest, they have been dismissed as racists as bigots.

But now it’s hitting the people with power, money and influence. Unsurprisingly, they are not too happy about their areas becoming a dumping ground either.

It means the pretence that everyone crossing the English Channel to claim asylum in Britain is a saint is finally being dispensed with.

Even Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, has woken up to the fact that there might be downsides to all this.

In 2015 she was filmed at a Refugees Welcome Rally in the city talking about asylum seekers.

“We must keep going until we really are at saturation point because what does it matter if we have to wait another week for a hospital visit or class sizes are slightly bigger or if our city is slightly fuller?” she said.

Now, Maskell is furious about plans to move 1,200 men to sleepy Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire, saying that the RAF base site is next to a primary school and will mean there are six men for every woman in the village.

Why that should be an issue is not spelt out, but the implications are clear.

Former Tory minister Edwina Currie is less reticent when it comes to such matters.

Her solution for dealing with the problems associated with sticking more than 1,000 men in a tiny village – in this case Piddington in Oxfordshire – is to set up a brothel.

All of these men are going to be kicking their heels all day and have needs to be met, so the solution is to get some sex workers down there, otherwise who knows what they might get up to.

Currie said that new camps provided “opportunities for business” and create work so there are upsides.

“The obvious thing that 1,200 young men are going to need in the middle of a village like little Piddington is a brothel,” she told Times Radio.

As if the free accommodation, meals, mobiles phones, dental work, driving lessons, yoga sessions weren’t enough of a pull factor.

Currie explained the use of hotels is going down because they are a “very obvious place to be and it can cause mayhem and, of course you get demonstrations outside so it’s something that governments really do not want to do”.

She said no one should have a veto if it is in the public interest to create a camp, explaining “if we endlessly allow objections to take over we don’t get anything done”.

Currie’s apparent prioritisation of young men from alien cultures over local villagers or exploited sex workers shows just how ludicrous the whole issue has become.

Too many of the hand-wringing classes have only had to face this issue in theory and their default is “Be Kind”.

Under Burnham’s plans the masses of young men arriving on increasingly large boats are suddenly going to become everyone’s problem.

Piddington and Linton-on-Ouse are just the start. Once quiet, respectable neighbourhoods are going to change quickly and dramatically in character.

As well as large camps, HMOs are also increasingly being used as accommodation and neighbours are powerless to act.

Arriving in Downing Street for the first time as Prime Minister, Burnham promised to “take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land”.

You can bet your life that the power he claims to be handing down doesn’t include the power to stop illegal migrant camps or HMOs. A small village may get a bigger say over its bus timetable but any meaningful powers will remain firmly in No 10.

Burnham’s conclusion to the small boats crisis has been to tell all parts of the country to “play their part”.

But Middle England doesn’t want to do that anymore than the industrial towns do.

The Prime Minister’s plan will intensify opposition, rather than ease the burden.

He will be forced to act, or forced out when voters finally get a say on whether they want him in No 10.