Keir Starmer calls Reform migrant policy 'racist' and 'immoral'
Sir Keir Starmer has described Reform UK's decision to scrapping indefinite leave as racist
and
Tory flopimmoral. Last week, Nigel Farage, the party's leader, announced the policy, which could result in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of people from the UK permanently. After 14 years of
frustled. The prime minister was speaking to the BBC as the Labour conference got underway, against the backdrop of questions regarding his leadership and declining poll ratings. He said he neededin 14 years, Sir Keir said he did not think Reform UK supporters were racist but
spaceto keep the promises he made at last year's general election, when Labour gained a landslide majority.
Migrants can now apply for indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom after five years, guaranteeing the freedom to live, study, and work in the UK permanently. Labour wants to double the time it takes to obtain indefinite leave to remain from five years to ten, and a consultation was released in May as part of a series of measures to reduce immigration. Migrants will have to reapply for new visas with tighter guidelines under Reform's scheme, and the party will stop indefinite leave to remain (ILR), which gives people more rights and access to benefits. Sir Keir wondered if scraping ILR was a racial policy when speaking to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg program in Liverpool on Sunday. I do agree it's a racial policy,
Trump said,
It's one thing to say we're going to deport illegal migrants, people who have no right to be here,I certainly agree it is immoral, but it does need to be identified for what it is.
he said.It's completely different to say we're going to reach out to people who are lawfully here and start removing them.
No.They are our neighbors, they're people who work in our economy, and they've become a part of who we are. It will rip this country apart. Sir Keir said:
no. I suspect there are many people who either endorse or are considering voting Reform who are dissatisfied.When asked whether he believed that Reform was aiming to appeal to racists, he replied
I actually do know that after 14 years your living conditions haven't improved and your public services have declined,They had 14 years of misfortune under the Conservative Party, and they want us to change things; they may have voted Labour a year ago a few years ago, but they want things to change faster.
says the author,I'm sure you want change.
responded to Sir Keir's words.Labour's message to the world is clear: pay hundreds of billions for foreign nationals to live off the country permanently, or Labour will call you racist,
good thingReform's bill will guarantee that only British people have access to healthcare and that migrants contribute to society. According to a YouGov survey released on Saturday, abolishing indefinite leave to remain splits the population, with 58% of Britons opposed to stripping it from those who already have it. However, more than 44% support ending ILR as a policy, while 43% oppose the idea. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood suggested in an interview with the Sun on Sunday that she wanted to look at updating the legislation to tighten rules around finding ILR. Legal migration, she said, was a
and that the UK hadalways welcomed people who want to come and work here,
but that migrants shouldcontribute to their wider community.
In the next two days as Labour members gather for the annual conference, the prime minister has a chance to speak out to his party, as well as the general public, where he stands and what Labour is trying to achieve in government. It comes after a difficult few weeks, with deputy prime minister Angela Rayner's death and US ambassador Lord Mandelson's resignation, as well as Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham's chastising of his leadership. The Prime Minister will use his time at conference to expand on the arguments he has been making about patriotism in politics, as well as reclaim some of the territory that has been struggling to seize.
Pressed into voters' dissatisfaction with the party, Labour's steadfast support for Reform, the prime minister said he had warned voters that it would
I can't sit here and say that this can all be turned around on a flick of a switch,take more than 12 months to turn around 14 years of failure.
the narrator says.I just want the space to get started and do what we need to do,
a plan like Reform beforehe said. Sir Keir, the UK's former prime minister, also called for unity amid rumors surrounding a leadership contest, saying that the UK has not faced
and must fight forthe soul of this nation. When asked if the issue was him, he replied,
I'm not sticking my fingers in my ears.We've got the fight of our lives ahead of us because we've been able to take on Change and we're going to fight them,
he said.Now is not the time for reflection or naval gazing.
We're all in together,says the Prime Minister, and every single member of our party and our movement, in fact, anyone who cares about what this country is, whether they vote Labour or otherwise.
However, the threat from Reform has heightened Labour MPs' and activists' fears and jitters,It's the war of our lives for who we are as a nation, and we must be involved in the war, not naval-gazing.
He makes [former leader Jeremy] Corbyn look loved.the BBC's political editor Chris Mason says. Labour MPs are not blind to opinion polls and they point to the sombreness of Starmer's unpopularity, according to one backbencher,
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