Keir Starmer blames Tories for UK’s ‘open borders’ as stats show record high
Sir Keir Starmer has accused the Tories of using Brexit to deliberately run an “open borders experiment” in the UK.
The prime minister said the British people are “owed an explanation” after revised figures showed net migration reached a record high of almost one million under the previous government’s watch.
Follow live: Spending on asylum jumps to record high
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows net migration for the year to June 2023 reached 906,000 – a big jump on what was previously thought and four times higher than pre-Brexit figures in 2019.
In a speech from Downing Street, Sir Keir said: “Failure on this scale isn’t just bad luck. It isn’t a global trend or taking your eye off the ball.
“No, this is a different order of failure. This happened by design, not accident.
“Policies were formed deliberately to liberalise immigration. Brexit was used for that purpose – to turn Britain into a one nation experiment in open borders.”
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Starmer quizzed over net migration
The ONS’s previous estimate for the year to 2023 was 740,000, which at the time was still a record amount.
The stats show net migration – the difference between people coming to live in and leaving the UK – is down 20% this year from the revised high of 2023, standing at an estimated 728,000.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch yesterday admitted her party, which made repeated pledges to cut net migration by tens of thousands during their 14 years in office, had got immigration “wrong”.
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Badenoch asked about illegal immigration
But Sir Keir said their failures were “unforgivable” and can’t be separated from the Conservative Party’s “refusal to do the hard yards on skills, on welfare reform, on giving our young people opportunities”.
“Clearly the vast majority of people who entered this country did so to plug gaps in our workforce,” he added.
In his press conference, Sir Keir said Labour would reform the points-based immigration system to require companies that are heavily reliant on foreign workers to also train British people.
This will go alongside a crackdown on abuse of the visa system, including banning employers who flout the rules from hiring overseas staff for two years.
‘Landmark’ deal struck with Iraq
Sir Keir’s speech came as Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced a “landmark” deal with Iraq, intended to crack down on the people smuggling fuelling illegal immigration.
Iraq is one of the top 10 countries people travelling in small boats come from (3,002 in the year to June). Around £300k of UK government money will be given to the country to help it with border security and law enforcement.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Iraq’s Minister of Interior Abdul Amir Al-Shimmari shake hands after signing a Joint Statement on Border Security. Pic: PA
Home Office data released on Thursday also showed the cost of the UK’s asylum system has risen to £5bn, the highest level of spending on record, and up by more than a third in a year.
On Wednesday, Tory leader Ms Badenoch said there had been a “collective failure of political leaders from all parties over decades” to grasp migration, adding: “On behalf of the Conservative Party, it is right that I as the new leader accept responsibility and say truthfully, we got this wrong.”
Other Conservatives, including former home secretary Suella Braverman, sought to take credit for the numbers coming down in the year to July 2024, which the ONS said was driven mainly by a fall in the number of dependants arriving in the UK on study visas from outside the EU.
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Kemi Badenoch will be “defined” by the first “clanger” she makes as Tory leader, Baroness Davidson has said.
The Tory peer said Ms Badenoch, who replaced Rishi Sunak earlier this month, had to be “humble and work bloody hard” in her role following the Conservatives’ worst-ever general election performance.
Speaking to Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Baroness Davidson criticised the Tory leader for choosing to give a speech at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) on the impact of Labour’s decision to increase employers’ national insurance contributions in the budget.
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During the speech, Ms Badenoch refused to say whether she would reverse the national insurance hike – despite calling it a “tax on jobs”.
Baroness Davidson told Rigby: “If I was in charge of the UK Tory party right now, if I wanted to do a business speech, I wouldn’t have done it at the CBI.
“I would have done it at the Federation of Small Businesses – the people that are most affected by this national insurance change.
“I would have been damn sure what my policy was going to be and what it was that I was going to be able to tell them.”
The Tory peer, who led the Scottish Conservatives from 2011 to 2019, said the job of an Opposition leader was to “go out and hustle” for votes.
She added: “It’s to speak to people… it’s to apologise for the stuff we got wrong, it’s to show people that we’ve changed, and it’s to start putting together slowly, bit by bit, a policy platform that can lead us into the next election in five years’ time.”
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Davidson’s advice for Tory leader
Baroness Davidson said there had been “so many open goals” for Ms Badenoch to take against the prime minister, including over his decision to scrap winter fuel payments for the majority of pensioners.
“Why is she not going off and speaking to pensioners?” Baroness Davidson said.
“We’ve got great stories to tell [on the winter fuel allowance]. Now, as we’re coming into this cold snap, she could have been doing something about that.”
She added: “She can’t be high-handed about this and she can’t be lazy. She has to be humble and she has to work bloody hard!”
Asked whether she thought Ms Badenoch was “lazy”, Baroness Davidson said: “I don’t know what her personal tempo of operations is and how she runs her office, she might be doing tonnes of things that we’re not seeing, but there’s a problem in that. We’re not seeing them.
“There is a massive klaxon going off in my head here because if Labour have worked out that she’s not defining herself, it doesn’t take an awful lot of steps to decide, ‘Well, we can define her ourselves’.
“And it will not be in a way that is helpful to the Conservative Party. They’ll wait for the first clanger and the first clanger is what will define her.”
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