Comments against mass migration voiced by the leader of the Labour Party has pushed the group to the right of the mass migration-loving Tories, Nigel Farage has said.
Speaking on the issue of immigration and skills shortages on Tuesday, the leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, emphasised that Britain must be weaned off its “immigration dependency” and instead focus on training up its own domestic workforce.
It is in no way clear if Starmer, who has previously always advocated the opposition position, actually believes this rhetoric or not. It is quite possible this is an opportunistic attack against a Conservative Party which is drifting ever further left on key conservative areas like immigration and taxation, leaving its traditional voters up for grabs.
Indeed, the comments — which have stunned many within the British political sphere — stand in sharp contrast with those of the UK’s Conservative Party Prime Minister, who has demanded that more immigrants be allowed into Britain to fill gaps in the employment market.
According to a report by the BBC, Starmer rejected calls for a free-flow migration system during a speech to business leaders on Monday, instead pushing for the implementation of a points-based system for prospective immigrants.
“[O]ur common goal must be to help the British economy off its immigration dependency,” the left-wing leader remarked. “To start investing more in training up workers who are already here.”
“The days when low pay and cheap labour are part of the British way on growth must end,” he went on to say.
Starmer’s position appears to indicate a significant drift to the right on immigration, with former Brexit leader Nigel Farage even comparing the policies rapidly being adopted by today’s Labour Party to those previously held by the UK Independence Party.
“Starmer is now repeating the UKIP 2015 manifesto,” Farage said, also making reference to the Labour leader’s pledge to see the House of Lords become a body elected by the people.
“He may not mean any of it, of course,” Farage continued. “But, to think, the Labour are now to the right of the Conservatives on immigration. That’s where we are [with] British politics today.”
The sudden shift in Labour’s immigration rhetoric appears to have deeply upset a number of the party’s most left-wing adherents, many of whom have pushed for open borders politics within the party.
“The reasons Britain’s wages have been suppressed isn’t because of immigration. It’s weak trade unions, austerity and a so-called ‘flexible’ labour market lacking security and rights,” Owen Jones, a journalist and major adherent of the leftist “Momentum” movement within the Labour party, remarked.
“Migrants are scapegoated because it’s more convenient to appeal to bigotry than fix the system,” he went on to allege. “The problem with Keir Starmer isn’t just that he’s a bad social democrat, but that he’s a bad liberal, too.”
The party’s former leader, Jeremy Corbyn — who has been essentially purged from the Labour party now — also appeared to denounce the shift, saying that wages will not be raised in Britain by “dividing workers and belittling migrants’ contribution”.
“Without immigration, the trains wouldn’t run, businesses wouldn’t function and the NHS wouldn’t exist,” Corbyn remarked. “We [should] introduce a £15 min wage, end zero-hours contracts & back striking workers instead.”
However, regardless of these protests, it appears that Starmer and his comrades are committed to their new hardline stance on immigration, with Labour’s shadow Business Secretary appearing on a variety of political talk shows on Tuesday to defend points-based immigration.
Jonathan Reynolds MP even appeared on pro-Brexit broadcaster GB News to push the new narrative, saying that immigration should not be the “sole means” of filling holes in Britain’s market.
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