Burnham's successor wins Manchester as migration question lands on regional mayors

Labour has held the Greater Manchester mayoralty, with council leader Paul Dennett replacing Andy Burnham. The result comes as the migration question - previously a national or Home Office matter - increasingly falls to regional leaders.

The Mirror credits a "Burnham bounce" for Labour's victory over Reform, though notes the incoming mayor will need "more than good vibes". GB News reports that Burnham has been told to set out an immigration plan "immediately", following what outlets are describing as a "concerning" migrant invasion in Ceuta. The Daily Express warns that if Burnham "ignores this wake up call Britain will face same migrant crisis as Spain".

Ceuta is a Spanish enclave on the North African coast. It has been Spanish since the seventeenth century, when Portugal ceded it formally - the city sits on the Moroccan border and has been a pressure point for migration into Europe for decades. The question now being put to Burnham and regional mayors is whether local authorities should have a migration policy at all, or whether the devolution settlement has quietly moved responsibility without moving the legal tools to enforce borders. No English mayor controls immigration; the demand appears to be for a position, not a power.

What to watch: whether Burnham or Dennett publish any statement on migration in the coming week, and whether that becomes a template other metro mayors adopt - or whether they refer the question back to Westminster as outside their remit.