Is a video claiming to be from the Daily Express reporting that U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham plans to bring 4,000 migrants from Ceuta into the United Kingdom real? No, that's not true: The Daily Express did not produce the video or publish such a report. The fake story also appeared on a website designed to mimic the newspaper's real site.
The claim appeared in a post and video (archived here) by the @ROYALMRBADNEWS account on X on Aug. 19, 2026. It read:
UK PM Andy Burnham wants British taxpayers to foot the bill for 4,000 migrants stranded in Spain. He plans to house them in 5-star hotels in London. What a generous guy.
This is what a screenshot of the video in the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @ROYALMRBADNEWS on X.)
The post is embedded below:
UK PM Andy Burnham wants British taxpayers to foot the bill for 4,000 migrants stranded in Spain. He plans to house them in 5-star hotels in London. What a generous guy. https://t.co/OXZkaJLzQf pic.twitter.com/xN9qsPcRkk
-- THE REAL DARK JUDGE (@ROYALMRBADNEWS) August 20, 2026
The post also included a link to the fake story (archived here), dated Aug. 19, 2026, on a fake Daily Express website designed to closely resemble the real site, including a web address also resembling the real one. The real Daily Express website is https://www.express.co.uk/, while the fake site uses https://dailyexpress.uk.com/. The fake headline read:
Burnham's migrant gamble: Thousands stranded in Ceuta to be brought to UK
Prime Minister proposes flying thousands of stranded migrants from Spanish enclave to Britain and housing them in London hotels
This is what a screenshot of the fake Daily Express story looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: dailyexpress.uk.com.)
The fake Daily Express website was registered (archived here) on Aug. 16, 2026, just a few days before the Burnham story appeared online.
The fake story's headline spread online. It appeared in a post (archived here) by the @HJB_News__ account on X on Aug. 20, 2026. It read:
So women and children are being raped in Ceuta by Moroccan invaders and Andy Burnham came up with a fabulous idea 💡
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @HJB_News__ on X.)
News searches
Lead Stories searched Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) and did not find any matching reports about the claim from credible news outlets using the search terms: "Andy Burnham," "Ceuta," and "migrants." The story was also not found on the real Daily Express website (archived here), using the same terms.
