Keir Starmer’s Britain is burning – and Andy Burnham just threw fuel on the fire

Burning lorries, waving flares, chanting mobs, flying bricks, injured police officers and water cannon sweeping the streets. It’s sickening to watch. This is Keir Starmer’s Britain, and it’s going up in flames. The PM rightly condemned the violence as “shocking and completely unacceptable”. It is. But as ever, his feeble response is nowhere near enough, and onlyshows that he’s lost control of the situation. It will do nothing to stop the violence.

In Belfast, they’re enflamed by the horrific attempted public beheading of Stephen Ogilvie by a Sudanese asylum seeker. In Southampton, riots followed the nightmarish Henry Nowak murder. Last year, the murder of three young girls in Southport triggered unrest in London, Manchester, Hartlepool, Sunderland, Liverpool, Blackpool and Rotherham. We’re reaching the point where every stabbing risks sparking yet another riot. And there will be more stabbings and sexual assaults. Unless our politicians take decisive action, there will be more riots too.

The Government can jail those responsible. But unless Britain regains control of its asylum system and stops the boats, the anger will keep building. A government that cannot control its borders is failing at the most basic level. Only one senior Labour figure appears to recognise the danger. Home secretary Shabana Mahmood has pushed for a tougher approach, but faces internal resistance at every turn.

Britain is arguably the most successful multiracial society in Europe. We should be proud of that. Today though, many voters feel immigration is out of control.

The so-called Boriswave stretched public feelings and finances to breaking point, with 1.6million arriving in just three years. Starmer’s pledge to “smash the gangs” and bribe the French authorities to stop the small boats are laughable. Unless Labour gets a grip, public anger aimed at asylum seekers could turn against black and Asian Britons whose families have lived here for generations. It also needs to make Jewish people feel safe in the UK, as Middle East hatreds play out on our high streets. This could turn very ugly, very quickly. So what is Labour doing?

Just as the country needs Westminster to focus on this divisive issue, Labour has chosen to descend into civil war. If Andy Burnham wins next week’s Makerfield by-election, he could trigger a leadership contest that could drag on for at least three months.

Candidates will compete for the votes of Labour MPs, activists and trade unions by lurching to the left. Not just on tax and spending, but on immigration too. That’s more likely to inflame tensions than reassure voters that somebody is listening.

There’s also a real risk that Mahmood’s tougher approach gets watered down, or that she’s sidelined altogether. Once again, Angela Rayner is coming after her. Fighting on the streets has its echo in Labour infighting.

Burnham’s power move might be justified if he was going to get a grip, but he isn’t. The man U-turns as often as Starmer. Worse, he hasn’t got a clue how to revive the economy. His answer is more spending, more taxation, more nationalisation and more EU. Maybe more immigration too. We can’t afford any of it.

As oil prices rise, inflation climbs and youth unemployment surges, Britain is facing a summer of discontent. Some even talk of civil war. There’s certainly one in Labour, and it’s pathetic. The party is fighting over whether it wants Keir Starmer or Andy Burnham to do the flip-flopping in Downing Street. It’s fiddling while Britain burns.