DAN HODGES: Burnham has dared to go where previous Labour leaders have feared to tread – but this is why there’s still a long way before he can claim to have gripped this small-boats crisis

Andy Burnham has finally decided to go where previous Labour leaders have feared to tread. Namely the White Cliffs of Dover, to announce the French farce which has seen the British taxpayer handing £160million to Emmanuel Macron to stop the small boats – only to see them being waved off by Gendarmes from the beaches of Calais with a cheery ‘Bon Voyage’ – will finally end.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister defiantly declared that he would be ‘relentless’ in confronting the Channel crisis. ‘The public don’t like the idea that the border looks like it’s not controlled. We need to bring back that control.’

A senior aide spelt out what that meant in practice: ‘The bottom line is payment by results. If certain tactics aren’t working, the funding stops.’

This bold rhetoric stands in stark contrast to his immediate predecessors. Keir Starmer’s premiership began to properly fall apart after he admitted his infamous statement that Britain was becoming an ‘island of strangers’ was one that had been inserted into a speech by his aides and been delivered without him even bothering to read it. The tough immigration policy it was meant to frame was also quickly disowned.

Jeremy Corbyn believed robust immigration rules were anathema to his socialist principles. And the closest Ed Miliband got to getting to grips with the issue was to put the word, ‘Controls On Immigration’, on the side of a mug.

So Burnham’s statement yesterday, though typically short on detail, marks a significant departure for his party. His critics will claim – with some justification – he has been forced to speak out by recent events.

Last week, Tory Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp was subjected to a hostile intervention from a French coastguard cutter, which unleashed a few live rounds as part of a ‘training exercise’ as he attempted to highlight a surge in small-boat arrivals.

And the dramatic incursion into the Spanish territory of Ceuta by 60,000 illegal migrants from Morocco highlighted Europe’s widening migration crisis.

The Prime Minister defiantly declared that he would be ‘relentless’ in confronting the Channel crisis

But Burnham’s allies insist his intervention is more than just reactive political posturing. ‘During the by-election in Makerfield the issue of small boats came up again and again,’ I’m told. ‘He understands this is a major issue for working people.

‘And he’s said that in his first few weeks on the job he would be focusing directly on the big problems that have been ducked for too long and finally need to be addressed. Small boats is one of them.’

It also represents an answer to those within his party who have been expressing concerns that his priority will be to drag his party to the Left in order to shut down the threat from Zack Polanski and his insurgent Greens.

Worries that were heightened by the re-admission into his ranks of Left-wing firebrand Diane Abbott, and the appointment of three Left-wing MPs to the junior ministerial ranks of Parliamentary Private Secretary.

As another Burnham supporter joked: ‘How many Labour MPs have gone to Dover to highlight the small-boats issue? Apart from Andy, the only other person to do it is Mike Tapp.’

Tapp, the former Home Office Minister who recently left government after an unseemly scrap with Shabana Mahmood, is famed for his stridently populist stance on immigration.

What Burnham’s intervention also presages is a shift in focus in international affairs. Keir Starmer prized his cosy relationship with Macron and other European leaders.

Our new Prime Minister has indicated he’s prepared to ruffle some diplomatic feathers if necessary. And that his agenda is going to involve putting domestic priorities ahead of international ones.

There is a long way to go before Andy Burnham can claim to have gripped the small-boats crisis. But his more robust approach represents a welcome start. Vive la difference.