Burnham to back Shabana Mahmood’s immigration changes, allies say

Key points

• Andy Burnham is backing Shabana Mahmood’s controversial changes to the immigration system, his allies have said, in a blow to those in Labour who hope to soften them.
• The Greater Manchester mayor is understood to be keen to reframe the changes but supportive of the home secretary’s attempts to limit legal and illegal migration, which have been criticised by some senior Labour MPs as un-British and mimicking Trump.
• Burnham faces a tough fight to return to Westminster against Reform UK, which has already called him “open-borders Andy”.
• But those close to his campaign say he will not seek to dilute the government’s curbs on migration, which include ending the right to permanent refugee status.
• “For Andy, migration is a moral issue as much as anything, showing people who’ve lost faith in politics that we do have control and we can do good,” one source said.