Labour’s migration bind |
After Labour came third in Gorton and Denton, the government had a choice. Chase the lost Green vote by moving closer to its positions on open borders, an amnesty for all illegal migrants and an end to deportations, or follow Reform who have pledged to make deportations non-justiciable and deport ‘up to 280,000’ illegal migrants a year. Some in Labour have blamed Gorton on Shabana Mahmood’s planned changes to Indefinite Leave to Remain and asylum, with Lucy Powell, the party’s deputy leader, saying that these policies were ‘a real concern to our ethnic minority communities’, and noting that the government’s tough talk on migration ‘came up a lot’ on the doorstep during the by-election campaign.
Diane Abbott is right – policies which would have been anathema in the Tory party a few years ago are now broadly accepted across the political spectrum
Diane Abbott is right – policies which would have been anathema in the Tory party a few years ago are now broadly accepted across the political spectrum
It seems for the government, the Green position is not particularly appealing. According to a government source ‘the Green party’s position of open borders is not supported by the country. In fact it’s not even supported by their own voters’, something the source contrasted with the government’s asylum policies which they believe ‘have support from the country as a whole, Labour voters and Green voters’.
There were also scathing words for those on the left of the party blaming migration policy for the defeat in Gorton and Denton, with a government source saying that:
‘Briefings from certain quarters of the Labour........