“All politicians are, you know, receiving these pressures and these challenges, but I did everything right,” Burnham said during a visit to Wolverhampton. “There was a minimal exchange of information of zero consequence, and it was quickly reported,” he added.
“I realized that this needed to be reported, and I did so. So I handled it in the right way,” he also said.
The incident has raised questions about potential national security vulnerabilities when it comes to the communications of senior politicians.
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting was among three Cabinet ministers whose numbers were found online by POLITICO on Monday.
Liberal Democrat MP James MacCleary on Tuesday called for an inquiry into the Burnham message exchange, which he described as a “dangerous security breach.”
In a letter to the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, he wrote: “This is an unacceptable breach. The security of the Prime Ministers’ communications ought to be absolute priority — and yet it appears, in this case, that routine measures to guard against these kinds of breaches were not followed.”
Burnham would not say whether the government planned to change procedures in response to the dupe, but insisted that “the correct action has been taken here and in the U.S.”