Half-witted at best, a people-pleaser at worst: step forward, Chris Philp

Responding to Shabana Mahmood’s changes to indefinite leave to remain, the shadow home secretary was detached from reality

Better late than never. It had seemed as if some apologies from the prime minister were more sincere than others. The one that he has planned to deliver for Britain’s role in the slave trade at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Antigua fell on the right side of genuine. There had been no need to make one at that time. Indeed Kemi Badenoch saw it as a sign of weakness. There again, she would refuse to apologise for running someone over on a pedestrian crossing. Somehow it would have turned out to be the victim’s fault.

Andy Burnham’s apology for not being able to turn up in the Commons to lend support to his home secretary might rather fall into the “sorry, not sorry” category. Making life more difficult for migrants was more one for Keir Starmer’s legacy than part of the new government’s agenda. Andy couldn’t have been more thrilled to be on a plane as Shabana Mahmood stood up to make her statement on “earned settlement”. It was almost as if the statement had been timed for when Burnham was away. At the very least, it was the perfect coincidence. If not divine intervention.

Even on Monday lunchtime, the prime minister’s spokesperson was refusing to give Burnham’s wholehearted support for Shabana’s proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain (ILR). Even after he and other cabinet colleagues had managed to water them down a little. The best that Andy would say was that “It was a good thing that immigration had fallen”.

Nothing about the home secretary’s role in this. Nothing that hinted at an endorsement. It felt as if Mahmood had been rather hung out to dry. Even more so when Angela Rayner, another of the home secretary’s critics, pointedly left the chamber by the far door so she wouldn’t have to look the home secretary in the eye after housing and communities departmental questions. No need for an awkward “That cup of tea isn’t going to drink itself”.

But at the very last minute – as if by magic – a short, unequivocal message of support from Burnham was released. “People want to see an immigration system based on control, contribution, and which rewards those who play by the rules,” he said. Shabana was not being abandoned, after all. Not that she wouldn’t have coped if she had. Even if she had not come to the house with Lou Haigh and Lucy Powell as her outriders, Mahmood is more than capable of looking after herself. She is a woman who knows her mind.

The statement was all much as we had expected. A reaffirmation of previous proposals with a few important concessions to Burnham, Rayner and backbenchers from the left of the Labour party. There would be a five-year route to settlement for care workers who had arrived prior to March 2025: a 10-year process for those who had arrived afterwards. Otherwise all was as it had been, plus or minus a couple of tweaks. New safe routes for refugees and a 30-year wait for those who had arrived in the country illegally. All with the usual caveats of speaking English, national insurance contributions and no criminal record.

We haven’t seen much of the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, in recent months. A relief to us all. Partly because even he had begun to have a sense of his own ridiculousness, partly because immigration had ceased to be such a hot topic for the country. There was more than a sense that the government was legislating for a problem that no longer really existed. Legal immigration has fallen to the tens of thousands a year from its high point of one million during Boris Johnson’s time in office. And the small boat crossings have more than halved. But Shabana doesn’t believe in taking chances. Happy to double-lock the doors to the country.

But this was The Philpster’s time to shine. To remind us all that he is at best half witted; at his worst, a people-pleaser par excellence. The ultimate nose in search of a bum. And so we got Philp at his most absurd. A joy to behold. A performance to make the whole statement worthwhile. A chance to give the entire Commons its Proustian madeleine moment. The Unbearable Lightness of Chris. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, The Philpster searches for the futility inside himself.

It had taken a whole year for Mahmood to establish her credibility, Philp declared. And she had destroyed it all in the space of her 12-minute statement. There will come a time when Chris compiles a show reel of all his political lowlights. A chance for him and his therapist to try to make sense of his career. How can someone of so little ability have come so far? Would Kemi really be daft enough to make him her home secretary if she won an election? Luckily she will never have to answer that one.

But know one thing. The Philpster’s reply will feature heavily in any lowlights reel. Above all else for his lack of self-awareness. The government should be ashamed of itself. This was virtually an open-doors policy. There would be foreigners everywhere if we weren’t careful. You could not be more detached from reality if you tried. It had been the Tory government that had presided over the mass wave of immigration. A Tory government that had failed to secure the country’s borders. And who had been a Home Office minister while this was going on? Step forward, Chris.

Mahmood scarcely bothered to grace The Philpster’s delusions with a reply. She would have been doing him a favour to offer him a prescription of some anti-psychotic drugs. Nor was it just Labour who put the boot in. The Tory father of the house, Edward Leigh, is becoming increasingly disinhibited in opposition. Determined to make up for a decade or more of supporting a failing government by telling inconvenient truths.

The former Tory government should be holding its head in shame, Leigh said. And anyone who had been in the Home Office should wear sackcloth and ashes. It was a complete evisceration of The Philpster and his empty words. Enough to almost make you feel sorry for Chris. Almost. Philp gestured half-heartedly towards Robert Jenrick, another former Home Office minister. Anything to try and mitigate the shame.

For the rest of the statement, various Labour backbenchers protested about the lack of fairness to immigrants; the retrospective nature of some proposals. Shabana really wasn’t bothered. She had given away as much as she was going to. The Labour party would just have to live with it. Elsewhere, Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf were holding a press conference on ILR. The government had been weak, they claimed. The only answer was to deport every immigrant. It would have been nice if, to show he meant what he was saying, if Zia had promised to deport himself. Not for being brown or Muslim. But for being thoroughly unpleasant.