Tuesday, 05 November 2024

'Read My Lips' -- Labour Party Leader Starmer Makes Election Pledge to Cut Migration... But Refuses to Commit to Cap

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'Read My Lips' — Labour Party Leader Starmer Makes Election Pledge to Cut Migration… But Refuses to Commit to Cap
Keir Starmer, Leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party delivers a speech at a businessAP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to cut immigration to Britain in a promise to the public ahead of the July 4th general election in the UK, however, the left-wing party has refused to commit to a specific immigration target.

In a break from the longstanding stance of the Labour Party favouring mass migration, Sir Keir Starmer quoted former U.S. President George Bush Sr's infamous 1988 “read my lips” promise not to raise taxes, a pledge which contributed to his political downfall after he walked back on the commitment.

“Read my lips — I will bring immigration numbers down,” the Labour leader told The Sun on Sunday. “If you trust me with the keys to No10 I will make you this promise: I will control our borders and make sure British businesses are helped to hire Brits first.”

“This is a changed Labour Party, back in the service of working people… That means not just talking about sky-high migration but acting on it,” Starmer vowed.

“I’m not going to duck the challenge. It’s got to come down,” he continued. “The Conservatives repeatedly say they are going to cut these numbers. They have never done it. They have completely failed. They have never had a strategy to deal with it.”

Sir Keir said that Labour would accomplish a reduction by requiring sectors applying for foreign workers to train Britons to do the jobs first, which he said will also bring down the number of those on welfare benefits. Additionally, the Labour leader said that his government would ban “bad bosses” — such as those who fail to meet minimum wage requirements — from hiring foreign workers.

Yet, Labour is refusing to make a firm commitment on the number of migrants it would allow per year. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said that this is because there are “variations” from year to year, explaining: “So, for example, the pandemic means the net migration figures, of course, fell, but the homes for Ukraine visa rightly meant that the figures increased because of the war in Ukraine.”

However, Cooper appeared to acknowledge that there are some political considerations behind the decision not to commit to an annual cap, saying that “every time the Conservatives have done this, frankly, then they have just ended up being totally all over the place.”

The Conservatives committed to cutting net immigration to the “tens of thousands in their 2010, 2015, and 2017 election manifestos, and vowed that immigration would “come down” in their 2019 manifesto. Such commitments were never fulfilled and instead, immigration soared to record heights, with net migration — the number of migrants allowed in minus the people who left the country — hitting an all-time high of 764,000 in 2022.

While initial estimates saw migration dip slightly last year to 685,000 following the arrival of 1.2 million people, previous years have been significantly underestimated, meaning it is possible that 2023 will later be revised to a new record.

The failures of the Conservatives to deliver on the promises to reduce immigration has been a major factor in the party's steep decline in the polls, in which they currently trail the Labour Party by as much as 25 points.

However, while this has left an opening for Starmer, many question whether his commitment to reducing migration is genuine given his history of advocating for mass migration and his signing of a 2020 letter demanding the government not deport 50 criminals to Jamaica.

Former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, who quit Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government for being too weak on illegal immigration, said of Starmer's pledge: “Read my lips? Judge Starmer on his record: the man who said 'there’s a racist undercurrent' to all immigration laws.

“And fought to stop foreign criminals being deported. He doesn’t want to reduce immigration or stop the boats. Never did. Never will.”

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