Andy Burnham faces new revolt on Left as Labour MPs urge him to ditch tough immigration reform

Andy Burnham will remain committed to immigration reform despite dozens of Labor MPs urging him to back down.

Allies say the new Prime Minister understands the importance of the issue and will stick to the Home Secretary’s tough stance.

He is under pressure to abandon Shabana Mahmood’s proposal that immigrants wait twice as long to settle permanently in Britain. After about 80 reactionaries sent him a letter demanding that he change course.

And Monday will see another show of force by the rebels, when dozens are expected to refuse to vote for the Immigration Bill.

There are echoes of the rebellion a year ago that forced Sir Keir Starmer to abandon proposed welfare cuts, fatally damaging his authority.

But a senior source close to Mr Burnham told the Daily Mail: ‘Andy gets it. He knows how important it is to properly control immigration. ‘He won’t back down.’

A second insider said: ‘The majority of the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] and the wider public are fully behind Shabana and Andy on this.’

A Cabinet minister who backed Mr Burnham added: ‘He is talking to colleagues about this and reassuring them there will be no pushback.

‘What people forget about Andy is that he’s from Wigan, not central Manchester. He understands how working people feel about this. He’s on their side.”

But a letter sent to him by Labor MPs this week said voters in the Makerfield area were more concerned with illegal immigrants than ‘making it harder for nurses and care workers to settle here’.

Mr Burnham was warned that under Ms Mahmood Labor had ‘decided to fight on Reform soil’.

Remainers said the plan to double the time required to qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) to ten years and apply it retroactively to those already in the UK ‘fails the test of fairness’.

They said the party had ‘wasted a huge amount of political capital’ and ‘a huge amount of Home Office resources’ on a policy that ‘few people really understood or wanted’, while also ‘losing progressive voters’.

‘We need a more strategic, cross-party approach, less focused on scoring political points, which risks Labor being seen as a pale imitation of Reformation,’ they insisted.

Although the ILR proposal is not part of the Immigration and Asylum Bill, rebels will use its return to the House of Commons next week as an opportunity to demonstrate their opposition to Ms Mahmood.

Dozens of people are expected to abstain rather than vote at Monday’s Second Reading, and some will try to oppose it in the debate.

Britain’s Supreme Court today backed an appeal by five Channel migrants who claimed the Government broke the law by deporting them; This deals a dramatic blow to the Home Secretary’s plans to crack down on illegal crossings (file photo)

A senior MP told this newspaper: ‘I think a lot of people are using the Bill as a referendum on how Shabana has handled both the PLP and immigration.

‘Most of us will abstain.’

Another MP said they were considering voting against it and offered to meet with a Minister of Internal Affairs.

There is also anger at Sir Keir’s Government, which pushed the Second Reading of the legislation to Monday despite knowing Mr Burnham would soon take over.

‘They gave him a test of how serious he was about immigration reform,’ one source said.

Under the bill, refugee status would no longer be permanent, and those granted asylum would be subject to review every 30 months to see whether they still face danger in their home country or can return safely.

Labor MP Stella Creasy said: ‘I think the Home Office should get basic information before we start spending more money asking the same refugees whether they are still victims of torture. It’s hard to see how the answer will change.’

In an intervention that could further fuel left-wing opposition to the bill, Britain’s equality watchdog has written to MPs about proposals that would make it harder for foreign criminals to exercise their family life rights to avoid deportation.

Mary-Ann Stephenson, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: ‘The Bill includes the definition of ‘family life’ under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and how this should be applied in immigration cases.

‘8. The clause protects us all and applies to children too. The definition therefore requires particularly close attention.’