Elphicke defection controversy worth it for ruthless Starmer as he spoils Sunak’s moment on Dover visit

Published

1 year ago

May 10, 2024

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“I am ruthless.”

That was Sir Keir Starmer’s account of himself and his decision to let Natalie Elphicke into the Labour Party on our trip to Dover on Friday to unveil his plan to stop the small boats.

Because for all the controversy her arrival on the Labour benches caused this week, for Sir Keir it was worth it.

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Starmer sets out what he’ll do to tackle small boat crossings

It allowed him to take the fight on migration directly to the frontline, Dover, and stand next to the now Labour MP, Ms Elphicke, telling the cameras that Mr Sunak had “failed to keep the borders secure” and “can’t be trusted”.

As a piece of political theatre, it was ruthless.

And the timing was ruthless too, coming on the day the UK had come out of recession.

Rishi Sunak had wanted the television bulletins to lead on turning the economic corner and “sticking with the plan”.

That’s not what he got.

Instead, the Labour leader used the Elphicke defection to skewer Rishi Sunak on small boats on the very day the prime minister wanted to get back on the front foot about the economy.

Starmer goes further than before in attack on Rwanda ‘gimmick’

Sir Keir did qualify his ruthlessness as not an end in itself.

“I’m ruthless in trying to ensure we have a Labour government who can change this country for the better,” he explained to me.

“Not ruthless for my own ambition, not ruthlessness particularly for the Labour Party. I’m ruthless for the country.

“The only way we’ll bring about a change in this country is if we’re ruthless about winning that general election and putting in place a government of public service, that’ll be a major change in politics.”

Calling the Rwanda scheme a “gimmick”, Starmer went further than he had before in our interview on Friday, telling me he will stop the flights from day one of a Labour government.

Instead, he outlined his own plan to create a new “elite” Border Security Command, made up of MI5 agents, Border Force officers, police, specialist investigators and prosecutors to target the criminal gangs.

This, he insisted, would be a better deterrent as he pledged to bring down the number of boat crossings “drastically” from the approximately 30,000 people who arrived in Britain via such crossings in 2023.

He also said he would reinstate a “rules-based asylum system” in which claims are processed and people are either returned to their country or granted asylum, as he criticised the government’s huge backlog of unprocessed claims.

But he admitted too after his speech that a Labour government would have nowhere to send thousands of migrants who had arrived from Afghanistan or Syria due to the lack of returns agreements with these war-torn countries.

I pushed him on targets: Would he commit to getting crossings down to 2020-type levels when 8,500 people came across on small boats?

But the Labour leader wouldn’t be drawn, telling me: “I’m not going to pluck out an arbitrary number” – as he took a swipe at Mr Sunak’s promise to ‘stop the boats’.

‘He’s going to open up our borders’

Rishi Sunak, for his part, was full of disdain – arguing that Starmer’s plan was to offer “an amnesty to illegal migrants” and that the Labour leader wasn’t offering anything new.

He said: “As far as I can tell all the things that we’re talking about today, are all things that we’re already doing – punching through the backlog, having more law enforcement officers do more, that’s all happening already.

“We’ve announced all of that more than a year ago.

“When it comes to illegal migration, it’s very simple – he’s just going to scrap the Rwanda plan and open up our borders.

“We’ve got a plan and we’re going to get our planes off.”

So far in 2024, 9,037 people have crossed the channel in small boats – 35% higher than at the same stage last year.

The prime minister has promised to stop the boats and get the Rwanda flights going within weeks.

But the country is divided on the plan, and sceptical too – with a YouGov poll in April showing a straight split between those who are supportive of the plan and those who are opposed, with only 23% of respondents believing it will be effective, against 55% of people saying they think it won’t.

It is a sign of confidence that Starmer, who has had to rebuild Labour’s reputation as a party of national security and law and order in the wake of the Corbyn years, now thinks this is a fight he can take to the Tories.

That he took in a right-wing Conservative with a controversial past in order to hammer home that point shows what he’s prepared to do to win.

The question now is whether his plan is more convincing to voters than the prime minister’s.

Politics

China Merchants Bank tokenizes $3.8B fund on BNB Chain in Hong Kong

Published

3 hours ago

October 15, 2025

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China Merchants Bank tokenizes .8B fund on BNB Chain in Hong Kong

CMBI’s tokenization initiative with BNB Chain builds on its previous work with Singapore-based DigiFT, which tokenized its fund on Solana in August.

Politics

Chancellor admits tax rises and spending cuts considered for budget

Published

7 hours ago

October 15, 2025

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Chancellor admits tax rises and spending cuts considered for budget

Rachel Reeves has told Sky News she is looking at both tax rises and spending cuts in the budget, in her first interview since being briefed on the scale of the fiscal black hole she faces.

“Of course, we’re looking at tax and spending as well,” the chancellor said when asked how she would deal with the country’s economic challenges in her 26 November statement.

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Ms Reeves was shown the first draft of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) report, revealing the size of the black hole she must fill next month, on Friday 3 October.

She has never previously publicly confirmed tax rises are on the cards in the budget, going out of her way to avoid mentioning tax in interviews two weeks ago.

Cabinet ministers had previously indicated they did not expect future spending cuts would be used to ensure the chancellor met her fiscal rules.

Ms Reeves also responded to questions about whether the economy was in a “doom loop” of annual tax rises to fill annual black holes. She appeared to concede she is trapped in such a loop.

Asked if she could promise she won’t allow the economy to get stuck in a doom loop cycle, Ms Reeves replied: “Nobody wants that cycle to end more than I do.”

She said that is why she is trying to grow the economy, and only when pushed a third time did she suggest she “would not use those (doom loop) words” because the UK had the strongest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of this year.

What’s facing Reeves?

Ms Reeves is expected to have to find up to £30bn at the budget to balance the books, after a U-turn on winter fuel and welfare reforms and a big productivity downgrade by the OBR, which means Britain is expected to earn less in future than previously predicted.

Yesterday, the IMF upgraded UK growth projections by 0.1 percentage points to 1.3% of GDP this year – but also trimmed its forecast by 0.1% next year, also putting it at 1.3%.

The UK growth prospects are 0.4 percentage points worse off than the IMF’s projects last autumn. The 1.3% GDP growth would be the second-fastest in the G7, behind the US.

Last night, the chancellor arrived in Washington for the annual IMF and World Bank conference.

‘I won’t duck challenges’

In her Sky News interview, Ms Reeves said multiple challenges meant there was a fresh need to balance the books.

“I was really clear during the general election campaign – and we discussed this many times – that I would always make sure the numbers add up,” she said.

“Challenges are being thrown our way – whether that is the geopolitical uncertainties, the conflicts around the world, the increased tariffs and barriers to trade. And now this (OBR) review is looking at how productive our economy has been in the past and then projecting that forward.”

She was clear that relaxing the fiscal rules (the main one being that from 2029-30, the government’s day-to-day spending needs to rely on taxation alone, not borrowing) was not an option, making tax rises all but inevitable.

“I won’t duck those challenges,” she said.

“Of course, we’re looking at tax and spending as well, but the numbers will always add up with me as chancellor because we saw just three years ago what happens when a government, where the Conservatives, lost control of the public finances: inflation and interest rates went through the roof.”

Blame it on the B word?

Ms Reeves also lay responsibility for the scale of the black hole she’s facing at Brexit, along with austerity and the mini-budget.

This could risk a confrontation with the party’s own voters – one in five (19%) Leave voters backed Labour at the last election, playing a big role in assuring the party’s landslide victory.

The chancellor said: “Austerity, Brexit, and the ongoing impact of Liz Truss’s mini-budget, all of those things have weighed heavily on the UK economy.

“Already, people thought that the UK economy would be 4% smaller because of Brexit.

“Now, of course, we are undoing some of that damage by the deal that we did with the EU earlier this year on food and farming, goods moving between us and the continent, on energy and electricity trading, on an ambitious youth mobility scheme, but there is no doubting that the impact of Brexit is severe and long-lasting.”

Politics

Crypto maturity demands systematic discipline over speculation

Published

12 hours ago

October 15, 2025

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Crypto maturity demands systematic discipline over speculation

Unlimited leverage and sentiment-driven valuations create cascading liquidations that wipe billions overnight. Crypto’s maturity demands systematic discipline.