PM-IN-WAITING Andy Burnham was challenged against continuing “existing racist and fascist migration policies” by a leading charity today.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) expressed its “grave concern” over his support for Home Secretary Shabana Madmood’s “racist and classist so-called ‘earned settlement’ and asylum proposals.” He previously said they would leave people in “limbo.”

In an open letter, JCWI executive director Lavanya Pallapi said: “The world today teeters on the brink of an existential crisis; between climate breakdown or ethically organised circular economies; between fascism and ethno-supremacy or multilingual, multiethnic societies and freedom of movement for all peoples; between gaping wealth inequality or equitable redistribution of resources; between war and militarisation or peace and survival.

“As the likely next Prime Minister of the UK, what you do matters.”

In her letter, she highlighted Mr Burnham dropping his commitment to end the No Recourse to Public Funds policy during his successful Makerfield by-election campaign last month.

JCWI urged him to commit to reversing the 2026 Immigration and Asylum Bill expected to be laid before Parliament on Tuesday and reinstate permanent refugee status.

It also called on him to back scrapping the forced family returns proposals and end the “irrational” one-in-one-out deal between Britain and France.

Ms Pallapi also raised “grave concern” over Mr Burnham’s failure to call Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza a genocide in May, instead saying that he couldn’t “judge things of that enormity.”

She noted his opposition to boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel, that he joined Labour Friends of Israel in 2015 and that his new chief of staff is also the former chair of Labour Friends of Israel. 

“We are gravely concerned that you will continue the Starmer government’s policy of actively supporting Israel’s genocide through the supply of arms, weapons and moral support,” she wrote.

JCWI demanded that he commit to ending all arms sales and trade with Israel and support the Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian people’s right to resist Israeli occupation.

It also called on him to support the Palestinian people’s right to return to their homeland and formally apologise and retract his former comments in support of Britain’s role in the 1917 Balfour Declaration that promised “a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.”

Mr Burnham was contacted for comment.