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+--- Thread: Article Burnham: Wealthier areas must do their part in housing asylum seekers (travel to UK) (/thread-21073.html)
Burnham: Wealthier areas must do their part in housing asylum seekers (travel to UK) - C C - Aug 12, 2026
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c204d4z1gg8o
EXCERPTS: Prime Minister Andy Burnham has suggested that wealthier areas of the UK should house more asylum seekers. "We cannot have a situation where it's only the poorest communities in the country that receive all of the dispersal of refugees and asylum seekers," he told GB News on Tuesday.
His comments came in response to a question about protests which have taken place in the village of Piddington, Oxfordshire over plans to provide accommodation for asylum seekers on a nearby former military base. But shadow home secretary Chris Philp, responding to Burnham's comments, said: "We shouldn't be housing illegal immigrants anywhere – wealthy or not."
Labour has pledged to stop using asylum hotels, a costly form of accommodation that has become a focal point for anti-migrant protests.
The government has sought to house migrants at military sites across the country instead, announcing in June that it planned to open three more including the site in Bicester, Oxfordshire. The plans have prompted protests there, with residents of nearby Piddington voting to stage a symbolic referendum on leaving the UK.
[...] After winning the Makerfield by-election in June, Burnham promised to end "HMO Britain" and said he would change Britain's asylum accommodation system. HMOs, or houses in multiple occupation, have been widely used by government contractors to house asylum seekers, often in lower income, urban areas.
Last week, there were anti-immigration demonstrations in the town of Thetford, Norfolk, with protesters attempting to enter homes where they believed asylum seekers were living. In response to Burnham's interview, Philp reiterated the Conservatives' policy of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights in order to deport migrants to their country of origin or a safe third country... (MORE - details)
RE: Burnham: Wealthier areas must do their part in housing asylum seekers (travel to UK) - Syne - Aug 12, 2026
But those refugees are still going to shop, work, and attend school among the poor... unless the UK plans to elevate them to the level of those neighborhoods. So they're still the problem of the poor. So Burnham is just making happy noises without actually changing/improving anything... which would require limiting such immigration.