The Reform UK Podcast

Burnham Demands Decade! - Farage Delivers Verdict on Wannabe PM

Reform UK Episode 13

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0:00 | 30:14

In this episode, we dissect Andy Burnham’s big Manchester speech - from his 10-year timeline for change to his refusal to take questions from the press.

Nigel Farage reveals the latest Home Office data on the staggering cost of the small boats crisis.

We also hit the road with Reform UK candidates Colin Sutton in Norwich and Sian Astley in Greater Manchester, as they take the fight directly to voters.

A must-listen episode exposing the gap between Labour’s fancy dress politics and Reform’s real solutions.

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SPEAKER_08

Sealed behind glass in Manchester's People's History Museum is a Dark Navy workers' jacket once worn by Andy Burnham. Bought at Kendall's, the city's version of Harrods, it sits proudly beside Michael Foote's donkey jacket, purchased from the actual Harrods. Clearly the preferred outfitter of the working class. Two Labour legends, two Oxbridge alumni, two deceptively ordinary coats, now part of Britain's growing collection of Labour fancy dress. Are you ready for this? No, Andy. But if fake kings can be crowned in the north, then there's no reason why style can't win out over substance. Some people have made a career out of it.

SPEAKER_06

Good morning, everybody.

SPEAKER_08

So it was hardly surprising that on Monday, 29th of June, Burnham chose the site of his own shrine to deliver his first major speech since returning to Parliament. This is Manchesterism. The man who is likely to be the UK's next Prime Minister laid out his vision for Britain, but admitted he would need 10 years to achieve change. Ours will be a 10-year mission. He then ended the event without answering any questions from journalists and slipped out via a side door, avoiding the press pack at the main entrance.

SPEAKER_01

Andy Burnham hasn't even walked into number 10 and he's already playing for time.

SPEAKER_08

Reform's Shadow Chancellor Rob Genrick summed it up perfectly on GB News.

SPEAKER_01

He's saying it's going to take him 10 years to turn this country around. Well, people can't wait 10 years. Is Andy Burnham going to secure our borders and stop the boats? No. Is he going to face down his backbenchers and tackle welfare so that he can get taxes down? No, in fact, quite the opposite. Is he going to take on Ed Miliband and ensure that we have lower energy prices? No. And the British public are going to very quickly see through exactly what Andy Burnham means.

SPEAKER_08

For anyone happy to see Burnham stroll into number 10 uncontested, this speech should have been a wake-up call. Because that kind of politics belongs exactly where we found it. In a museum. I'm Ray Addison, and this is the Reform UK Podcast. Later that afternoon, at ReformHQ in central London, Nigel Farage stepped in front of a camera to deliver his assessment of Burnham's agenda.

SPEAKER_06

So the big Andy Burnham speech today, he's going to rebalance power in Britain. What it means, of course, is more and more devolution. As if, by magic, that's going to solve everything. Well just ask yourself a question. Has devolution in London with Mayor Sadiq Khan made London Street safer? No. Has devolution in Wales given them a better NHS or education? No, they're the worst in the country. And has devolution in Scotland cleaned up Scottish politics? Well, I think the recent jailing of one of the former bosses of the SNP would say no. Just to give more and more powers, indeed including tax raising powers, to mayors all over the country of itself won't stop the boats, won't deal with the national debt. And frankly, I think what you're seeing from Andy Burnham is what he thinks is the big idea. And it's not going to work because he says it'll take ten years to lift Britain back up to where it needs to be.

SPEAKER_08

Despite around 80% of British adults saying they want illegal immigration stopped or dramatically reduced, Andy Burnham hadn't mentioned the issue once in his big speech. His glaring omission was particularly worrying for taxpayers as new figures released that day revealed the enormous lifetime cost of the small boat's crisis.

SPEAKER_06

The Home Office have just snuck out some figures they'd rather you didn't see. What it shows you in the last year, over 34,000 people were given asylum status in Britain on the basis of Article 8 of the ECHR, the right to a family life. Just on last year alone, and bear in mind, these are home office figures. The estimated cost of those 34,000 people over their lifetimes to the British taxpayer is £5 billion. Can you believe it? Article 8, over the course of the last year alone, will cost the British taxpayer five billion pounds. I wonder if we go back five, ten, fifteen years and work out the total, we find something completely eye-watering. Allowing those boats to cross the channel is bankrupting Britain.

SPEAKER_08

While Burnham was stalling for time, Reform UK was cracking on with plans to save broken Britain. Hi Richard. Yeah, good, busy morning. Yeah, every morning's a busy morning. Yeah. I met up with Deputy Leader Richard Tice outside the Houses of Parliament to find out more about the upcoming party conference.

SPEAKER_00

So party conference, beginning of September, three days. First day is a business day, big important announcements. I'll be talking specifically around launching some policy thoughts and ideas about radical reform to planning, in particular for Brownfield areas, how to regenerate our town centres, which across much of the country, frankly, are in crisis emergency state. So that will be very important. I'll also be putting forward some plans for significant business rate reform and also be talking about our plans around the huge British Sovereign Wealth Fund potential that I'm very excited about could be transformative in terms of backing British companies, promoting British products, getting proper public sector procurement and investing in hundreds of thousands more affordable homes and local and regional facilities and infrastructure. So really, really important, very exciting, and I think it's going to be a massive, massive conference. We've now got almost two and a half thousand elected representatives, and it'll be a great opportunity to celebrate everybody's electoral achievements. And by then, of course, we'll be under a new prime minister. No one knows what he stands for. I'm calling it the Burnham Babbel, frankly, because uh we just get the usual vacuous waffle from another perma politician who's basically carried out a coup on the country.

SPEAKER_08

Yeah, just on that, do you think there's an even a possibility we could potentially have an election called by then by the time of the conference?

SPEAKER_00

I mean it's possible by the time of conference. Depends what happens to the polls in the interim. Obviously, one would expect a bit of a burn and bounce in the polls. Hill could do a tournote out of the country, giving a load of his vacuous waffle. And let's wait and see. We have to be prepared for anything, and whatever happens, uh we'll be prepared, we'll be ready. So maybe it's a good place to come along if somebody's interested in standing as an MP or a yeah. I mean, if people people are interested in standing as a candidate, they need to get their applications in, and you know, we've got a lot to do. Do a bit of networking, etc. Yeah, absolutely, and it's great to be amongst friends. It's great to be amongst friends. There's a friend, you see, alarm clock Britain. Yeah, there from the um scaffolding truck. Absolutely, and that's these are the folk that we represent. Sick and tired of the unfairness of paying for all of the illegal migrants cooped up in hotels and HMOs, causing anxiety amongst women and girls. You know, people are fuming at the state of our country, how broken Britain is, and the fact that only reform can fix it.

SPEAKER_08

I was thinking about Starmer's reign as Prime Minister, and he essentially killed off his own premiership within the first couple of months.

SPEAKER_00

He was straight on the back foot and he just kept making mistake after mistake. Yeah, he started on whatever it was, July the 4th. He was toast as of May the 7th, and he went last week. So um it's basically 22 months. It's pretty extraordinary, really, given he's got a 160-odd majority.

SPEAKER_08

I just find it a little bit depressing that somebody can so clearly out themselves as unsuitable for the job from the get-go, and yet it's more than a year approaching two years.

SPEAKER_00

Well, what's more what's more depressing is that someone can replace him who nobody knows who he is. Get this statistic. Seven million people were not of voting age when Andy Burnham was last in the House of Commons. No one knows who this bloke is outside those living in Greater Manchester. Not a clue what it stands for. I mean, some people call him the King of the North, I call him King of the Utah and Captain Flipflop.

SPEAKER_08

After the tragic case of Henry Novak highlighted deep concerns over two-tier policing, reforming Britain's broken police forces is high on Reform UK's agenda. That evening in Norwich, Colin Sutton, Reform's candidate for Norfolk Police and Crime Commissioner, was preparing to speak in front of a packed audience.

SPEAKER_05

Well, it's about 10 minutes before the show starts or the rally starts, and there's a really good atmosphere, and I hope there's you know 400 or so people out there who are going to go away from here and work really hard to help us win this election. So, yeah, it's all good so far.

SPEAKER_08

A former senior detective with over 30 years of experience on the force, Pollen led some of the Met's highest profile investigations, including the hunt for serial killer Levi Belfield. He's now bringing that no-nonsense approach to Norfolk, fighting to restore law and order and put victims first. Nigel Farage was there to introduce him.

SPEAKER_06

I really can't think of a better qualified candidate to be police and crime commissioner. He looks all genial and jovial, but he's not really a better living detective. Without elected legitimacy behind it, much the game by putting our shoulders to the wheel and supporting Collins in this campaign.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you so much, all of you, for coming. It's no good coming if you don't go out and do some work afterwards, but thank you for coming anyway. I've just done some interviews with some media people, and one of the questions that they asked me was, how are you going to achieve something in two years? And I just looked at them and thought, I've got Andy Burnham, I don't need ten years. Yes, of course we can change things in two years. And you can end up, we can show how having reform in charge of policing gives you a police force that you want doing the things that you want. Do you see what I did there? I think you did it as well. I said police force. Now that's a funny thing, you know. I spent about the last two-thirds of my career tripping over myself in meetings and remembering to say service. I've not got those shackles on me now. So I'll ask you, do we want a police service or a police force? You're talking my language. You know the reform pillars of family, community, country. I think that your life under that is underpinned by three other pillars, which I say are health, wealth, and security. Because if you haven't got the security, you've lost everything. But this is our chance now, and a big election. 715,000 people have the right to vote in this election. It's a big election. We will have the opportunity to showcase just how good we can be in terms of policing and crime policy. In the same way that the councils like Kent and Lancashire and Leicestershire and Warwickshire have shown over the last year how good a reform council can be at governing. This is not something, it's not a political furtherance of any political ambition to stand for this role. It's not a stepping stone to something else. It's my life's work. And this is the kind of culmination of it. I believe we need to win this election.

SPEAKER_08

Hello, if you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell so you never miss an episode. Please leave us a five-star review and a comment too. Now, back to the episode. With Burnham's ambitions having outgrown Greater Manchester, the search for a new mayor was underway.

SPEAKER_03

I proposed opening up the files on the grooming gangs, on the GNCA luxury apartment loans, on the Eules waste, on the alleged Aviva overspend, and on the social homes allocations and deals. I'm standing because Greater Manchester deserves better.

SPEAKER_08

On Tuesday, I met Reform's candidate Cyan, a longtime Manchester resident, with the plan to drive around the region, talking to voters and discussing the issues that she wants to tackle.

SPEAKER_03

We did the insurance what did we do? The insurance or something the other week. And how long have we had that car? Seven years. And um wasn't here, and I rang Martin and said, What what colour is our car? And what and what make is it? I just don't, I'm just not interested really in cars.

SPEAKER_08

No, me too.

SPEAKER_03

I just they just don't bother me. Yeah, it's blue. A A to B. Yeah. I said it's an Audi. And he was like, no, it's no.

SPEAKER_08

So yeah, it'd be fine you driving. Yeah. Yeah. We started off by driving to Manchester City Centre and the location of Burnham's No Questions speech the day before. One of the things I thought was interesting from Burnham's speech was he was talking about a lot more social housing being brought in across the whole of the UK for people. And yet there's a shortage of housing here in Manchester, isn't there?

SPEAKER_03

There's a huge shortage of housing here in Manchester. I think there are over 20,000 households on the Manchester Register, the Housing Register in Manchester, and they haven't built social housing for decades.

SPEAKER_08

Obviously, he's been mayor of Greater Manchester for 10 years. One might have thought he'd have made a bit more progress with that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, Andy Burnham has been mayor here since 2017. Um but social building social housing has not been the priority for Manchester City Council or GMCA, I don't think. I mean, you know, they kind of offloaded council housing as it then was to housing associations years ago, years and years ago. And I just I don't think it's really been very high on their uh on their agenda, you know. Um it's sort of been left to the housing associations whilst they've built shiny luxury towers in the city centre.

SPEAKER_08

That's a bit of a contradiction.

SPEAKER_03

It is a bit of a contradiction, and it's a contradiction that many people have noticed and they're not that happy about. But you know, what what often happens is it's the the people who suffer the most, the people who are in the social housing and the people who are on the housing waiting list, they aren't necessarily the ones with agency or power, are they? So who have they had to complain to in Manchester apart from the housing in Manchester for years and years? It's been Labour in charge. Um, and those people who haven't got that power, that agency or that voice, they've been the ones that have suffered. So it's all very well and good, isn't it, for the kind of more wealthy Labour voters to say, well, look at Manchester, it's amazing, look at all our shiny towers. And actually, the result has been a complete decline in social housing. I have been out personally since the 7th of May to see residents and to see the housing, and it is absolutely shocking. It is it is shocking. Residents in social houses can't get repairs done. They're told, you know, they are told to sue the housing association instead of just the repair being done. Um I organised a repair in somebody's bathroom, and he and his mother hadn't had a bath in their own house for two years.

SPEAKER_08

And of course, defending those lawsuits that cost the taxpayer millions and millions.

SPEAKER_03

I can't even tell you. It's a scandal waiting to emerge, is that? Um I spoke to a solicitor uh who is based in Liverpool and she deals with hundreds, if not thousands, of cases where residents are told to just go and find a no-win, a no-win, no-fee solicitor and take the Housing Association to court because most people won't.

SPEAKER_08

I mean I thought that that was, you know, looking after working people, protecting working people, protecting the most vulnerable in our communities. Those are things that Labor sells to us as being right in their DNA.

SPEAKER_03

And it's one of the reasons why I've moved away from the Labour Party. Um, because I feel as though they not only don't represent working people, but also the more vulnerable, they profess to be helping. But the reality is on the ground that they don't.

SPEAKER_07

Roll in, ready when you are.

SPEAKER_08

Outside the People's History Museum, Cyan recorded a video addressing voters.

SPEAKER_03

So my name is Cyan Astley, and I'm standing as the Reform UK mayoral candidate in the upcoming Mayor's election on the 30th of July. And I'm standing in the city centre of Manchester and I'm just outside the People's History Museum. But Andy Burnham was here yesterday with his fans and with his acolytes giving his Prime Ministerial speech. And I have to say, it kind of typifies that level of arrogance and complacency which has turned me off Labor in the last few years. He's not Prime Minister yet. He's coming up here giving the speeches as though he is. And has he lived up to everything he has promised? You know what lots of people say? Not. If Labor are doing so well here, why didn't Former UK get nearly 50% of the council seats on May the 7th? I was one of those councillors that won in a seat which had been Labour controlled for 50 years. We have his promise to end homelessness in 2017. That's not going very well. We have all of these shiny towers in Manchester City Centre, but precious little money spent outside in the towns and the boroughs, in the places which voted reform. There are questions to be answered. And there's an irony in that. Because did he answer any questions yesterday? No. He hot footed it, back on the train, back to Westminster, answering no questions at all. We need to know these things. Bev Craig, my competition in this election, telling everybody yesterday on Instagram that she's looking forward to working with the Northern Mayors. You've not won yet, Bev. There's a competition to be had, and I'm here for it. And I'm asking for your vote on July the 30th.

SPEAKER_08

Whilst we were filming, a group of builders walked past um Sun Hanstok to speak to one of them.

SPEAKER_03

So will you be voting in the upcoming mayoral election today? Why not?

SPEAKER_07

They're all useless. They're all useless.

SPEAKER_03

Have you really got so disillusioned with them that you think, well, what's the absolute point?

SPEAKER_07

They all go with good intentions, as soon as you get in, it goes out of the window.

SPEAKER_03

And have you voted before?

SPEAKER_07

Ernest for 20 years.

SPEAKER_03

What do you think about it? If you don't mind me asking. Labour. What do you think it would take for you to get back a trust in politics?

SPEAKER_07

Someone delivered in them, what you promised. Which hasn't happened for years and years.

SPEAKER_08

The man confirmed her concerns about the lack of affordable housing in the city.

SPEAKER_07

And I ever built noise apartments. I haven't built a house, an affordable house, in 15 minutes, you know. Yet you get a pollution of apartments in town. And the affordables are in fact big fat zero. Exactly. Every project you do, there's no 15% affordables in supposed to be. And we don't even get nowhere. And the only ones that do sell is make way for the money before they even separate and the affordable. Before these of it gone in the ground members.

SPEAKER_03

What they've been doing is giving hundreds of millions of pounds to developers to build luxury flats. So there you go. Because he's got an opportunity to meet them. But that's the legacy. And this is what I've questioned. That is the legacy. So Andy Burnham is a great guy and he's affable and he's really likable and he and he does all the bonhomie stuff. But if I look at his record and I look at what's been done, it's not good enough.

SPEAKER_08

Our next stop was the town of Lee. Why is everything shuttered?

SPEAKER_03

I don't know.

SPEAKER_08

Burnham had been the area's MP for 16 years before quitting in 2017. Still Labour run. I was shocked at the state of the high street. Oh, there's the drunk bench. Did you see the drunk bench? We just passed the parliamentary office as well. Did you see that? You always know you're in trouble when there's a drunk bench. Should we jump out? So just tell us where we are then.

SPEAKER_03

We are walking through Lee, which is a town in Greater Manchester. Um north of Manchester City Centre. And it's just one of the areas really which has been very left behind. You know, this area hasn't seen the percentage growth that Manchester City Centre has. This, you know, you look at this, you look at the high street and you don't want to talk areas down. Who wants to talk areas down? Nobody. But it has to be recognised that towns like this have not seen that sort of attention, you know, that the city, the shiny city centre, has had. People have been left behind, and it's why people have voted in areas like this for reform.

SPEAKER_08

See in mobile phone shops, um vape shops, nail parlours, things like that. And quite a lot of shuttered, shuttered buildings as well. There's a there's a quite a large group of potentially homeless, potentially people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction on a group of benches down at one end of the high street as well. Quite off-putting.

SPEAKER_03

It's really off-putting, and you know, these were proud towns full of industrious people, working people at one time. And it's really saddening actually to see. And you just think with investment and with jobs brought here and with some support for people, these are good people who've been left behind, and it's just um yeah, it makes my blood boil really.

SPEAKER_08

No towers around here, is there? Why why do you think they've been so left behind around here then?

SPEAKER_03

If we're really going to get into it, then for me I think that in this country we have imported cheap labour for such a long time, and we've been so reliant on cheap labour for such a long time, in different decades on different parts of the world, bring it importing cheap labour in from different parts of the world, that what we've done is it's been easier to keep people on benefits and to give them that life of benefits and just keep them quiet than it has been to actually put the work in and create jobs after deindustrialization. And that's that's why I think this has happened. It's laziness, it's laziness from our politicians over many, many years, 50 years, 60 years, um, and this is the result.

SPEAKER_08

But what I find interesting, if if if Burnham's obviously capable of making some improvements within a particular city, namely Manchester, but he hasn't hasn't been able to improve the lives of people in the outlying towns that make up Greater Manchester, then how can we expect him to make improvements nationwide to the whole of the UK?

SPEAKER_03

And I couldn't agree more with your question. How can we? When they've failed in to make these towns in the doughnut and in the ringroads and around Greater Manchester when they've failed. And talking about failure is really difficult when you're talking about people's lives and when you're talking about the towns that they come from and that they're proud of and they love and they love their hometowns, they love their neighbours, and you know, and it's it's really hard to talk about failure. And I think that they've been almost scared to do that, you know. They haven't wanted to associate themselves with things that are too hard to fix. And I suppose, you know, I look at it and I think I've never been a woman that's thought something is too hard to fix, but it's gonna be very hard work.

SPEAKER_08

Just then a woman came out of a shop to let us know she'd be voting for reform.

SPEAKER_03

You know what? I'm standing as the main. And they do. Yeah. We all want that. And I was a labour voter, I was a Labour voter. Yeah. You know, but we've got to be able to stand up and say this is not clear. This is not right. It is too much.

SPEAKER_02

Why do you think it's too much? Why do you think because there's nothing. My daughter's been waiting for a house for years and years, but yet they're they're all coming up and getting one straight away. It's just shocking. It's shocking. What do you feel about the high street and and the streets around and the town work here so it just feels like it's just I don't know, rubbish real? There's nothing going on for no one. What do you think it needs? Um some better shops that we're not all these, you know, vape shops, that's all we've got. Yeah. No, nothing. There's nothing, Mr.

SPEAKER_03

Why do you think that is? Why do you think it hasn't been invested in?

SPEAKER_02

Because no one cares about it. No one cares about nothing, to be honest. That's how everybody feels.

SPEAKER_03

So And that's really sad, isn't it? To say that nobody cares. And Andy Burnham was your MP from 2001 to 2017, then's gone over to be the mayor at GMCA. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And yet we're just hearing such too many things about Andy Burnham and what he's, you know, letting in and everything else and what he's what he's gonna do, and yeah. So not a fan. Not a fan then? Definitely not.

SPEAKER_03

So will I have you vote on the 30? He definitely will.

SPEAKER_08

Another resident shopping on the high street said he supported the idea of Burnham becoming Prime Minister. Do you think that people should be able to become Prime Minister without a general election? Oh god, no. I mean that's what's about to happen.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, uh circumstances over this, I think, dictate that he should be given a chance. Uh a general election is an overall vote for a majority party to take control with a mandate. Yes.

SPEAKER_08

So he either has to stand on the 2024 mandate, which Keir Starmer came in on, or he has to call a general election, surely. He can't implement different policies.

SPEAKER_04

I I agree with that. I hadn't thought on that on that angle. My thoughts were over a lot of things that basically we needed to change, and it would be a good idea to give him a chance. So as well. I hadn't thought of mandates or anything. But what would we what are we changing to?

SPEAKER_08

What does he stand for? He just had a press conference and he didn't take any questions from the press, he ran away.

SPEAKER_04

Well, that's fair enough. He needs to consolidate his ideas. Well hold on, hold on. He's had he's had years to come up with his ideas. Why does he need to consolidate them now? Your good selves. Uh you're doing an interview, so you're not out for front page news to sell copies. True. Uh some of the press who wanted to interview him may have wanted front page controversy over something, I don't know.

SPEAKER_08

Well, they want to put quite they want to put challenging questions to him and see if he's got any answers to those questions because he's about to try and run the country. And he and he couldn't change this area for the better. And he was the MP here and then the Manchester Mayor for nine, ten years. Yes, or no. How could he run the United Kingdom? And on what on what basis and on what policies?

SPEAKER_04

I agree with you on that, on afterthought. I just tired of the way things are, the the crime problems, the drugs problems that we experienced, the idiots on the roads and and and different things. Uh they just grind you down after a while. Yeah. And it was just a thought to give somebody else a chance. Like a Hail Mary. Have you heard that expression? Yes, yeah. It's just anything's better than what we've got. Yeah, yeah, I I I would be worse. True. I might be clutching at straws, but I think you should be given a chance. Alright, thank you for your time, sir. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_08

Thanks. Enjoy your coast DVD as well. Later, as we drove home in the rain, I asked Cyan what she thought of the responses we'd heard.

SPEAKER_03

I tell you what, um Andy Burnham is an affable chap, and that comes across, but is he has he delivered what he needs to deliver for the towns and the boroughs outside of Manchester City Centre? And I think the resounding answer is no. And I can see that with my own eyes. I don't have to hear it from residents. Um the antisocial behaviour that people talk about, the lack of investment, um it's not right, is it? It's not how things should be. Um there should be a much fairer spread of the wealth and spread of the investment and spread of the love. And I think I think residents, uh, that's what they've said. That's what they've said today. Um so things need to things need to change.

SPEAKER_08

The Reform UK podcast was produced and presented by me, Ray Addison. Thanks to Nigel, Rob, Richard, Colin, Cyan, and of course you for listening. If you'd like to help reform demand the general election that the British people deserve, please consider joining the party. You can find all the details at reformparty.uk. And if you'd like to chat with other listeners about the show, you can join the Reform UK podcast community on Facebook. We'll be back with a brand new episode on Monday. Goodbye.