SerpApi.Org
Andy Burnham’s favourite poet, we’ve been repeatedly told, is Philip Larkin. Our new Prime Minister will be well aware, therefore, of a certain poem that Larkin wrote exactly 60 years ago, in 1966. Friday Night at the Royal Station Hotel is a hauntingly vivid sonnet – and it happens to be about a real hotel in Hull. I’m sure Mr Burnham knows this. But does he know what that beautiful hotel is used for today?
If not, I bet he can guess. For the past six years, it’s been used to house asylum seekers.
Given that Larkin died in 1985, we cannot say for certain what he would have made of this development. But I think we can take a pretty good guess. Especially as, in a letter to his mother in 1970, Larkin wrote: “Mr [Enoch] Powell is still saying we must keep out the immigrants – a pity he isn’t leading the Conservatives…”
Of course, no one expects Mr Burnham to admire Larkin’s political views as much as he admires his poetry. But he must at least have grasped that the people of this country are not necessarily overjoyed when they see large numbers of illegal immigrants being abruptly housed in their neighbourhoods. And if he hasn’t grasped this, he soon will. Because Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has just made a cunning move to call his bluff.
As Zia Yusuf, the party’s spokesman on home affairs, points out, the Prime Minister has made a tremendous song and dance about the importance of taking power away from Westminster and giving it to local communities, so that they can make their own decisions. In which case, will he be allowing local communities to decide whether or not they “want unvetted illegal migrants dumped in their areas”? And if they decide that they don’t, will he empower them to block all such arrivals?
I’m sure Reform can predict Mr Burnham’s answer. Inevitably, it will be a firm no. After all, if it were yes, he would soon find it impossible to house these migrants anywhere – because of the sizeable risk that every single council in the country would veto it. And yes, that very much includes the councils led by parties which love lecturing the rest of us about the importance of showing “compassion” to “vulnerable people” who are just “seeking a better life”.
For evidence, look how vehemently Rachel Millward of the Greens opposed the Home Office’s decision to open a camp for 600 male asylum seekers in her own lovely area of East Sussex. In Oxfordshire, meanwhile, the local Lib Dem MP, Calum Miller, has vigorously fought plans to open a camp for 1,250 male asylum seekers near the charming market town of Bicester.
Mr Yusuf, I suspect, knows that his request is certain to be rejected. But then, that’s plainly the reason he’s made it. His real aim is to show that the new PM is a shameless hypocrite whose “power to the people” sloganeering is nothing but a sham. In effect, the Reform message to voters is: “Mr T-shirt here claims he wants to let you make your own decisions. But he’ll never let you make your own decision about illegal immigrants. Because he knows you’ll give him an answer he doesn’t want. So he’s going to keep on filling your towns and villages with undocumented foreign men, whether you like it or not.”
Fundamentally, then, Mr Yusuf is engaging in a crafty little ploy, designed to highlight Left-wing dishonesty and double standards. Rather like Reform’s announcement in May that, if it wins the next election, it will place all small boat migrants in constituencies which have Left-wing MPs who support mass immigration.
An amusing thought. But then, I would say that. Because it so happens that I suggested it first, in my Telegraph column of March 10. Less than two months later, my modest proposal had become official Reform party policy. How gratifying, to see politicians listening for once.
In the meantime, there may at least be some belated good news for the people of Hull. Their two local MPs, Emma Hardy and Dame Diana Johnson, have said they’re “very optimistic” that the Royal Hotel (as Philip Larkin’s old haunt is now known) will soon be emptied of asylum seekers, so that it can return “to its original use as an iconic venue”.
I’m sure Larkin would be glad to hear it. Although, as he was a fervent cheerleader for Margaret Thatcher, while Mr Burnham blames her for every single thing that’s gone wrong in this country over the past 40 years, I doubt he’d give our new PM much credit.
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