A Labour grandee has accused Sir Keir Starmer’s party of being “too frightened” to talk about immigration in the wake of the recent riots engulfing England and Northern Ireland.
Dame Margaret Hodge, who stood down as the MP for Barking ahead of the general election on July 4, instead urged Starmer to adopt positive discourse about immigration.
Hodge told The Guardian: “We are all at fault that we’ve always been too frightened to talk about immigration. If you’re a politician, you have a voice.
“We need to use that voice to develop a new discourse about immigration – you lead rather than follow.
“It’s talking about why people are here, what they contribute, the richness they bring to society.
“We also have to show we can control our borders. Those who aren’t legitimate asylum seekers, you send back as quickly as you can.
“If somebody breaks the law here and ends up in prison, you send them back where you can.
“But then link that to a much more positive and realistic view of immigration. We’ve got to just tackle it.
“People who want to hang on to their seats next time have got to worry that [the election] turnout was low, and be worried that there was this protest vote. We ignore it at our peril.”
Former Tory MP Jake Berry said on GB News that the scale of Labour’s majority has created an “elected dictatorship”.
He explained: “Weak oppositions create bad governments. That’s a trap Keir Starmer is falling into.
“He has so much power that he feels that he can subjugate the British people with this culture of fear that if you mention immigration, you’re some sort of racist.”
With that in mind, do you think Keir Starmer is silencing Britons on immigration? Have your say.
