Labour MP Barry Gardiner was asked how he can sleep at night.
Labour MP Barry Gardiner clashed with political commentator Paul Cox (Image: GB News)
GB News turned tense on Sunday as political commentator Paul Cox clashed with Labour MP Barry Gardiner. Appearing on the programme to discuss the government’s attempts to tackle small boat crossings, Cox declared, “Andy Burnham can say what he likes about this. We know what he thinks; it’s obvious what he thinks. He thinks that in order to keep in power, he needs to maintain the constant influx of illegal and legal immigration because it’s those people who will vote for him, and it’s as simple as that. Barry, you know this…”
Striking a nerve with Gardiner, the MP quickly fired back. “This is nonsense!” he replied. “They can’t vote, you’re talking absolute nonsense.”
“Look, nobody wants to see the illegal migrant crisis, the small boats,” Gardiner continued. “Let’s not pretend that Andy Burnham, for some reason, wants them to all come here because they’ll vote for him when they can’t even vote.”
Jumping in, Cox noted that he hadn’t been able to finish his initial point. “My point is that if they wanted to stop it, they would have done so by now,” he said. “Park all the nonsense because you’ve had 30 years in Parliament, and I give you all the respect in the world about that. But what I would say, as a bloke, as a human…
“I don’t know if you’ve got any children, but I’m sure you’ve got plenty of family. Seeing the invasion that we’ve seen, the drip-trip invasion of this country – irrespective of your politics – how can you sleep at night being part of a party, or a part of a system, that has never really tried to stop it? I would find it difficult, and I say lots of silly things all the time. But, I would find it incredibly difficult to live with myself.”
Cox accused Labour leader Andy Burnham of allowing the migrant crisis to continue to secure votes (Image: Getty)
Responding, Gardiner began, “Let me try to explain to you. The idea that the Conservatives didn’t want to stop it; they did want to. They tried lots of ways of doing it, and they weren’t successful. Now let’s look at what Nigel Farage has re-cooked [with] his policy from before the 2024 general election, which was ‘we’re going to get the Navy’.
“I was interested to hear him say, ‘We will get our Navy to take them back to the shores of France.’ That’s what he said, right? You can’t. That would be an invasion because it would be our Navy going into their French territorial waters.”