Andy Burnham's speech to the United Nations General Assembly reeked of hypocrisy because Britain's own ruling politicians have caused such damage to this country through their corrosive mix of open borders and identity politics, argues Leo McKinstry.
Blame Russia strategy
If in doubt, blame the Russians. That seems to be the strategy of Britain's rulers as they try to evade responsibility for the colossal damage caused by their policies. This week, in his speech to the UN General Assembly in New York, the Prime Minister savagely condemned the "insidious campaign" by the Kremlin to undermine Britain, using "poisonous disinformation" and manipulative online propaganda.
Russia is undoubtedly a serious threat to western democracy. As the cruel war in Ukraine demonstrates, Vladimir Putin's despotic regime lacks any humanity or respect for the rights of other nations. But Andy Burnham's words to the UN would have carried more weight if our recent Governments had been tougher in defence of Britain's integrity and values.
Homegrown damage
It is not the Russians who opened the floodgates to an unprecedented influx of new arrivals, with net migration into Britain reaching an incredible annual peak of 944,000 in 2023. Nor is it Moscow that has left many British citizens feeling like aliens in their own land, as multi-culturalism brings practices like modern slavery, female genital mutilation, sharia jurisdiction, and Islamic dress codes.
Only this week it was reported that a primary school in North London requires girls as young as seven to wear the hijab. Similarly, Burnham denounced Russian interference in our elections, but successive British governments have presided over increasing ballot box fraud, including the abuse of postal votes by self-appointed "community leaders," and patriarchal "family voting" in polling stations.
Official dishonesty
In New York, the Prime Minister accused the Russians of "spreading lies and disinformation," but Britain's own state machine is a vast engine of dishonesty, as highlighted by the long, shameful cover-up of Asian grooming gangs. In the twisted mindset of the authorities, it was more important to maintain the illusion of multi-cultural success than to uphold the truth or protect the vulnerable.
Disinformation appears to come easily to the guardians of official dogma. They declare that Britain is "a land of immigrants," a blatant untruth, given that we were actually one of the world's most homogenous nations until the 1960s. Similarly, amid rising concerns about our fraying social fabric, they continue to parrot the hollow slogan that "diversity is our strength."
Channel crisis and welfare
Equally fraudulent is their pretence the boats crossing the English Channel are full of genuine female and child refugees. In fact, the overwhelming majority of these illegal immigrants are young men of military service age, and, according to a Home Office whistleblower 99% of their claims to refugee status are bogus.
The Channel crisis is now a menace to our security. But it was not the Kremlin that turned the Border Force into a quasi-ferry service, or decreed that the rights of illegal migrants should be prioritized above those of British citizens. That was the work of our own politicians, the same lot who have indulged in the economics of the madhouse by giving migrants access to welfare benefits.
Thanks to this idiocy, Britain is now importing jobless dependency at an unsustainable rate. Contrary to the propaganda of the open door brigade, less than a third of new migrants come here to work, while £12 billion is annually spent on universal credit alone for foreign nationals.
Division and liberty fears
Burnham and his team like to see themselves as compassionate. But in reality they are promoting division and intolerance. In the new climate of oppression by wokery, 62,000 people have been arrested in the last five years for speech offences, the sort of statistic we usually associate with Russia.
Fears about the loss of liberty will only be heightened by the Government's pledge to set up a new national centre for information defence, an Orwellian-sounding body that could end up cracking down on dissent at home. Our own political establishment has proved it is no defender of Britain's democratic traditions.
