Elphicke defection controversy worth it for ruthless Starmer as he spoils Sunak’s moment on Dover visit
“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.
Politics live:
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.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Starmer commits fully to stopping Rwanda plan in Sky News interview
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.
Sir Keir Starmer with new Labour MP Natalie Elphicke. Pic: PA
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.”
Read more:
A defection and intervention show Tories splintering
Officers raid homes of first people to be deported to Rwanda
Rishi Sunak was out and about on Friday trying to talk up the economy. Pic: PA
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
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.
The TON Foundation could have avoided its golden visa controversy in the UAE with a brief legal review, a local lawyer told Cointelegraph.
Politics
Norman Tebbit: Former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government dies aged 94
Norman Tebbit, the former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government, has died at the age of 94.
Lord Tebbit died “peacefully at home” late on Monday night, his son William confirmed.
One of Mrs Thatcher’s most loyal cabinet ministers, he was a leading political voice throughout the turbulent 1980s.
He held the posts of employment secretary, trade secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Conservative party chairman before resigning as an MP in 1992 after his wife was left disabled by the Provisional IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
He considered standing for the Conservative leadership after Mrs Thatcher’s resignation in 1990, but was committed to taking care of his wife.
Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit in 1987 after her election victory. Pic: PA
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called him an “icon” in British politics and was “one of the leading exponents of the philosophy we now know as Thatcherism”.
“But to many of us it was the stoicism and courage he showed in the face of terrorism, which inspired us as he rebuilt his political career after suffering terrible injuries in the Brighton bomb, and cared selflessly for his wife Margaret, who was gravely disabled in the bombing,” she wrote on X.
“He never buckled under pressure and he never compromised. Our nation has lost one of its very best today and I speak for all the Conservative family and beyond in recognising Lord Tebbit’s enormous intellect and profound sense of duty to his country.
“May he rest in peace.”
Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret stand outside the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Pic: PA
Tory grandee David Davis told Sky News Lord Tebbit was a “great working class Tory, always ready to challenge establishment conventional wisdom for the bogus nonsense it often was”.
“He was one of Thatcher’s bravest and strongest lieutenants, and a great friend,” Sir David said.
“He had to deal with the agony that the IRA visited on him and his wife, and he did so with characteristic unflinching courage. He was a great man.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said Lord Tebbit “gave me a lot of help in my early days as an MEP”.
He was “a great man. RIP,” he added.
Lord Tebbit as employment secretary in 1983 with Mrs Thatcher. Pic: PA
Born to working-class parents in north London, he was made a life peer in 1992, where he sat until he retired in 2022.
Lord Tebbit was trade secretary when he was injured in the Provisional IRA’s bombing in Brighton during the Conservative Party conference in 1984.
Five people died in the attack and Lord Tebbit’s wife, Margaret, was left paralysed from the neck down. She died in 2020 at the age of 86.
Before entering politics, his first job, aged 16, was at the Financial Times where he had his first experience of trade unions and vowed to “break the power of the closed shop”.
He then trained as a pilot with the RAF – at one point narrowly escaping from the burning cockpit of a Meteor 8 jet – before becoming the MP for Epping in 1970 then for Chingford in 1974.
Lord Tebbit during an EU debate in the House of Lords in 1997. Pic: PA
As a cabinet minister, he was responsible for legislation that weakened the powers of the trade unions and the closed shop, making him the political embodiment of the Thatcherite ideology that was in full swing.
His tough approach was put to the test when riots erupted in Brixton, south London, against the backdrop of high rates of unemployment and mistrust between the black community and the police.
He was frequently misquoted as having told the unemployed to “get on your bike”, and was often referred to as “Onyerbike” for some time afterwards.
What he actually said was he grew up in the ’30s with an unemployed father who did not riot, “he got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it”.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike