Starmer condemned for telling MP ‘she talks rubbish’
Sir Keir Starmer should have reassured and explained his immigration policy to a senior Welsh MP rather than telling her “you’re rubbish”, Labour peer Harriet Harman said.
Speaking to Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Harriet Harman criticised the prime minister for telling Plaid Cymru Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts during PMQs “she talks rubbish” after she called him out for using “island of strangers” in his immigration speech on Monday.
Baroness Harman said: “He should have actually explained ‘look, this is what we’re getting at. We’re it’s a communitarian message, it’s about neighbourliness, it’s about integration’.
“And he should have done that and reassured her and explained rather than just slapping her down.
“I just think to call across the chamber, ‘you’re rubbish’ – I think a prime minister has the opportunity to be a bit more magisterial in that.”
She said she has “been that woman standing there asking the prime minister a heartfelt and serious question, and had the prime minister say, ‘you’re rubbish'”.
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Starmer’s speech divides opinion
Baroness Harman added: “I kind of went ‘ouch’ at that point, because I’ve been in that situation myself.
“I think people do want an explanation and he’s got an explanation and he should have done that rather than hit at the messenger.”
After Sir Keir used the phrase “island of strangers” while announcing a crackdown on immigration, fellow Labour MPs, businesses and industry reacted angrily.
The rhetoric was likened by some critics to Enoch Powell’s rivers of blood speech.
Ahead of PMQs on Wednesday, Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden tried to move the debate away from Sir Keir’s controversial remarks.
“I think we should focus on the policy,” he told Sky News.
“Immigration has contributed a huge amount to the UK, it will in the future, I think the public want a sense of rules around it, that is what the prime minister was speaking about.”
He said the row was “overblown” and he might use the “island of strangers” phrase “depending on the context”.
The Conservative Party will leave a key human rights treaty if it wins the election, its leader Kemi Badenoch has said.
Ms Badenoch announced the policy to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) ahead of the Conservative Party’s conference next week.
Despite many Tory MPs having expressed displeasure with the treaty, and the court that upholds treaty rights in recent years, it had not been party policy for the UK to exit it.
The move follows a review on the impact of the UK’s ECHR membership conducted by shadow attorney general Baron Wolfson.
Lord Wolfson’s nearly 200-page report said the ECHR had impacted government policy in numerous areas.
The report said this includes limiting government’s ability to address immigration issues, potentially hampering restrictions on climate change policy, and impacting government ability to prioritise British citizens for social housing and public services.
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But leaving the ECHR would “not be a panacea to all the issues that have arisen in recent years”, Lord Wolfson said.
It comes after the Reform Party in August said they would take the UK out of the ECHR if elected.
The Conservatives have increasingly come under threat from Reform and are being trailed in the polls by them.
What is the ECHR?
The ECHR was established in the 1950s, drafted in the aftermath of the Second World War and the Holocaust, to protect people from serious human rights violations, with Sir Winston Churchill as a driving force.
It’s 18 sections guarantee rights such as the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the right to a fair trial, the right to private and family life and the right to freedom of expression.
It has been used to halt the deportation of migrants in 13 out of 29 UK cases since 1980.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch. Pic: PA
A political issue
Leaving the ECHR would breach the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the peace settlement deal between the British and Irish governments on how Northern Ireland should be governed.
Labour has in recent days said it was considering how Article 3, the prohibition on torture, and Article 8,
the right to respect for private and family life, are interpreted. The sections have been used to halt deportation attempts.
The Liberal Democrats and Greens are in favour of the ECHR.
A general election is not expected until 2029.
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