Burnham’s silence over violent anti-migrant Thetford riots speaks volumes

Andy Burnham has been conspicuously silent about days of racist mobs rioting outside a hotel housing migrants in Norfolk. It’s a deeply worrying sign: Burnham might be worse in some regards than Starmer.

Our newly-minted Prime Minister, given perhaps the easiest ride of any new leadership in living memory, has not been silent on various matters. Instead, he seems to have taken to governance by inane TikTok-first soundbites as his preferred method of leading the country.

He’s been vocal about important matters like ranking pub confectionery and the difference between a barm and a butty. He also ‘revealed’ his favourite Greggs order, even if he didn’t sound fully confident of its name. But which No.10 is he at today — North or South?

Well actually, it’s neither. Instead, after a busy few months deposing Keir Starmer in order to bend over more fully to the military-security complex, Andy Burnham’s on holiday. He’s supposedly promised to remain in “direct contact” to make sure the, er, country is running ok. One problem, though: it’s not.

Among the various problems which Burnham promised to fix “‘faster’ than Starmer” is a real stinker. That’s the constant, dangerous, billionaire-backed summers of hatred against migrants and asylum seekers.

NEW: Andy Burnham has revealed his go-to Greggs order is the Sausage, Bean and Cheese Melt pic.twitter.com/Bi2mlU656Y

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) August 11, 2026

Burnham — even worse than Starmer?

Cast your mind back to the mid-late summer of 2024. Three innocent young girls were murdered by a Welsh boy, possibly suffering a psychotic episode, with whom authorities clearly failed to properly intervene.

We all know what followed. Racially suggestive innuendos from Nigel Farage et al. Blatant misinformation from extremist right-wing figures like Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson. Violent, angry white race riots.

And then the punishments. Keir Starmer made a lot of noise about cracking down on rioters: over 500 were prosecuted in mere weeks. But while Starmer made a big display of public order that year, he pandered more fully to the extreme right in summer 2025. Remember the ‘Island of Strangers’ speech?

Arguably, Starmer’s speech, combined with a deepening array of hostile environment policies towards migrants, set the ground for continued violence. They also make it ok for Burnham’s silence.

In recent days, similarly large, violent and blatantly racist mobs took to the streets of Thetford, Norfolk. They reportedly attempted to drag migrants and refugees from their homes, whilst calling for them to

have their f**king heads chopped off.

Journalists attempting to report on the horrific, racially targeted violence have been bombarded with rocks and other thrown missiles. Police seeking to put a stop to them have been attacked and even bitten.

As journalist Adam Bienkov put it on his Substack page, Folded:

Whilst happy to opine on ‘vertical drinking’ and whether bread rolls should be called ‘barms’, our new PM has had nothing to say about three days of horrific racist violence on our streets…

The biggest failure of Keir Starmer’s premiership was his refusal to effectively take on the rise of the far right across the UK. … Andy Burnham now risks repeating that same failure.

The false narrative white supremacists have pushed about their own white riots

The Mahmood anti-migrant factor

One big spectacle of Burnham’s entry into No.10(s) was his big shakeup of the top dogs. Many on the left will have surely been happy to see the backs of certain odious figures like Steve Reed or Darren Jones.

There were some fairly new faces, like energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh. Then some big figures returned to cabinet: Angela Rayner, Louise Haigh, etc. But mostly, known figures were shuffled around, as if they’re all equally cut out for managing entirely different parts of economy and society:

• Ed Miliband from climate and energy to foreign minister (disappointing his Chancellor hopefuls);
• Pro-militarisation hawk John Healy from defence to Chancellor (welcome to the war economy);
• Pro-privatisation, Palantir-Mandelson groomee Wes Streeting from health to defence (surprise?);
• Ex-foreign minister and draconian anti-liberties home sec Yvette Cooper to health (big demotion);
• And so on, the cabinet re-shuffle continued in such a fashion… Apart from a few exceptions.

The most glaring exception to the re-shuffle, one of few to remain in-post, was Shabana Mahmood, still our Home Secretary. The same woman who posted Nazi-like attire pics on X in a concentration camp.

Keeping Mahmood in-post should be considered an olive branch offer to the most reactionary elements in British society. She has proven more than willing to be seen to be making life harder for migrants.

Norfolk Police deploy “significant” resources to counter three nights of racist violence in Thetford

When silence becomes violence

If PM Burnham were genuinely on holiday and not in contact with the rest of us, that would be one thing. I’d still expect at least an emergency tweet — or TikTok, from him — if not the full podium. But no.

Instead, what we saw over the Thetford riots was wilful blindness to the violence. Not only that, he shortly afterwards went on GB News for an exclusive interview, the same channel lionising those assaulting asylum accommodation. He talked about how much he was doing to make things more impossible for migrants.

In contrast to this, Burnham’s selective silence on the racist Thetford pogroms speaks volumes. Silence in itself, especially from the country’s supposed leader, becomes an implicit acceptance of the violence.

This should not be particularly controversial. If anything, any self-respecting ‘conservative’ or even moderate, you’d expect, would hope to see condemnation of violence against coppers. But not even that.

It’s fortunate that rioting has been more geographically constrained this year, so far. What’s deeply, madly discomforting is that Brits have grown accustomed to this annual summer violence in such a short time.

I’m not suggesting that Starmer’s maximal crackdown approach of the first summer is warranted. It involved some questionable social media prosecutions. But there was serious reprimand for serious violence. I’m also not going to pretend like Starmer’s own pandering wasn’t seriously harmful to anti-racist causes. But, if nothing else, he made big displays of acting outraged at the regular disorder.

Now, however, it appears that such violence goes unchecked, with the implicit acceptance of the PM. He’s failed to act like he even cares, and has acted in precisely the wrong direction.

How the UK government laundered racist violence after the 2024 race riots

Featured image via the Canary

By Cameron Baillie