On 30 May, Nigel Farage posted the latest in a long line of dehumanising political ads. Reacting with more good humour than Farage deserved, Makerfield candidate Andy Burnham responded as follows:
Are you getting desperate, lad?
Maybe keep your crypto millions for something else.
— Andy Burnham (@AndyBurnhamGM) May 30, 2026
Using refugees as pawns like this shows that Farage lacks any empathy whatsoever.
And if he cares this little for the people who are most in need, we’ve got bad news for anyone deluded enough to think he cares about them.
Nasty Nigel
Farage later highlighted what he was talking about:
Your scheme will provide housing and benefits to people who came here illegally.
I prefer to put the British people first. pic.twitter.com/CEG7Tfg2wc
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) May 30, 2026
You’ll note Burnham’s plan relates to refugees and that Farage refers to “people who came here illegally”. Sadly ,in the UK, these two things aren’t mutually exclusive. The reason for this is because we’ve opted to use the loophole of being an island to shirk our international responsibilities.
Speaking more on how the UK criminalises desperation, Rose Cocker wrote for the Canary:
safe and legal routes are desperately few and far between. Often, they focus on very specific groups of refugees, such as Ukrainians, who are predominantly white, whilst neglecting others, who are predominantly people of colour.
Without a massive expansion of safe routes, asylum seekers are left with no option but dangerous channel crossings. If asylum seekers have no right to work or other decent income, they will be forced to work illegally. Without adequate housing alternatives, the UK will have to use hotels to accommodate asylum seekers.
These are problems, certainly. But they are problems that our government has caused.
Farage doesn’t want to solve these problems; he just wants to treat the victims like a punching bag so Reform voters get to feel like there’s someone below them on the totem pole.
“Crypto millions”
Burnham’s response to Farage also included this line:
Maybe keep your crypto millions for something else.
As we’ve reported, Farage is facing separate investigations over a £5m ‘gift’ he failed to declare:
Here are the facts as laid down by Derbyshire:
- Farage says he won’t run
- crypto billionaire pays him £5mill
- Farage U-turns and runs
- Farage hides the donation
- Farage announces if he wins the election he will slash capital gains tax for crypto firms
Same old same old https://t.co/ViEIFZkf3A
— Alonso Gurmendi (@Alonso_GD) May 6, 2026
Since all this came out, Farage has done his best to avoid interviews:
Victoria Derbyshire, “We asked for an interview with Nigel Farage tonight and we got a thumbs down emoji from his team”
“Over the last couple of weeks we’ve asked for an interview with Nigel Farage or anyone from Reform UK’s front bench ten times”
Jake Berry, who used to be a… pic.twitter.com/l594M6EQ1Q
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) May 19, 2026
Given Farage’s reluctance to speak on camera, it will be interesting to see how he copes with this by-election. And with rumours of Burnham calling an early general election if he wins, things could get even more intense for the toad-faced huckster.
Burnham — A sign of things to come
In response to the Burnham-Farage exchange, Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked:
Is this the next general election campaign? pic.twitter.com/ozyNsfa8O9
— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) May 30, 2026
He’s predicting that the next election will be Farage calling Burnham a ‘refugee lover’ and Burnham accusing Farage of being in the pocket of billionaires. In other words, it’s an election in which Britons will decide who they think is bleeding this country dry: the refugees who have nothing or the billionaires who own everything.
And sadly, neither of these men seem set to represent the pro-refugee position:
in the last couple of weeks alone andy burnham has backed mahmood’s immigration policies, reeves’ fiscal rules and the horrific and unworkable ehrc anti-trans code of practice… https://t.co/Kw8bfoHmpq
— Ben Smoke (@bencsmoke) May 27, 2026
Featured image via Leon Neal (Getty Images) / Leon Neal (Getty Images)
By Willem Moore
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