Sir Keir Starmer will face fury from Red Wall voters if he fails to take any “discernible” action on immigration, Reform UK insiders have told GB News.
The Prime Minister, who yesterday failed to include immigration in his six “milestone missions”, recently changed tack to blast Kemi Badenoch’s Tories for overseeing a so-called “open border experiment” post-Brexit.
Labour released a short attack advert against the Leader of the Opposition highlighting Badenoch previous support for loosening rules for both work visas and students visas on Wednesday.
Starmer is also doubling-down on his pledge to curb legal and illegal migration after the Office for National Statistics last week revealed that net migration hit 728,000 in the year ending June 2024.
However, Labour is stopping short of adding much detail on Starmer’s plan and instead merely vows to “restore order to the asylum system” through a Border Command to “reduce small boat crossings”.
After a shock new opinion poll put Reform UK marginally ahead of Labour, Nigel Farage’s allies suggested that the populist party could be handed a golden opportunity to make further inroads in the Red Wall.
Nigel Farage with insets of Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch
PA
A Reform UK source told GB News: “Labour refuses to even include immigration as one of their milestones, it’s clear they’re not taking this issue seriously. The Home Secretary has today suggested it’s ‘not practical’ to set a target to cut migration.
“This is a betrayal of voters and will end up in failure just like it did with the Tories. Only Reform UK is serious about cutting immigration to net zero and ending mass immigration.”
Another Reform UK insider claimed: “They can talk-the-talk about the Tories but Labour hasn’t taken any discernible action on immigration. It’s going to fail and we will still have hundreds of thousands in net migration every year.”
Following Farage’s bullish Spectator awards speech, the source added that Reform UK’s ambition of winning hundreds of seats at the next general election is only becoming more and more likely.
They said: “If he said that two years ago, he might have been laughed at. He wasn’t. Everyone looked at him very stone-faced, there was a big gulp and they now realise there’s a strong possibility of that.”
Unveiling his six “milestone missions” at Pinewood Studios yesterday Starmer stopped short of including an immigration pledge.
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Channel migrant crisis on course for 40,000 by year’s end – as almost 33,000 cross so far in 2024GETTYThe Prime Minister instead appeared to focus on kickstarting economic growth, building an NHS fit for the future, safer streets, breaking down barriers to opportunity and making Britain a clean energy superpower.
In a document highlighting the details of Starmer’s missions, the Prime Minister pledged to build 1.5 million homes, drastically reduce hospital backlogs, deliver a 13,000 police boost, improve education standards for young Britons and accelerate the UK’s path to Net Zero.
Despite not making immigration a central pillar of his premiership, Starmer did mention immigration during his speech at Pinewood Studios.
He accused the Tories of “spraying taxpayers’ money up the wall” on Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation plan.
The Prime Minister also said that clearing the asylum backlog and returning people to their original countries who have claims rejected would be a “much more meaningful deterrent” than the now-scrapped Rwanda plan.
Starmer even confirmed that Labour intends to “reduce immigration – legal and illegal”.
Nigel Farage ahead of the 2024 US Presidential Election
X/NIGEL FARAGE
And new Dover & Deal MP Mike Tapp even claimed that “national security and secure borders come first”, marking a clear change of tone for Labour compared to the Jeremy Corbyn years.
However, Channel crossings continue to cause problems for the Prime Minister after it was revealed this week that 20,110 people have completed the perilous 21-mile journey since Starmer entered Downing Street.
The figure marks an increase compared to the 17,020 crossings completed over the same period last year but down from the 31,264 who crossed between July and November 2022.
However, top Tories believe that Starmer’s recent attacks on Badenoch show that the Prime Minister is rattled by the Leader of the Opposition.
“Starmer is so far out of his depth,” a Conservative MP told GB News.
“PMQs showed he is utterly incapable of deviating from the script in front of him, with no spontaneity whatsoever.”
A Red Wall Labour source appeared to dismiss the threat from the Tories, instead focusing on Farage.
Discussing Starmer’s pivot to address Britain’s “unsustainable” immigration figures, the insider said: “We need to do it. Reform is the biggest threat to Labour at the next election as it stands. The Tories lost legitimacy and that’s why I think, in the Red Wall, they’ll be largely ignored. They broke people’s trust.
“Labour’s identified that Reform’s a threat but you have to take away the visuals. If migrants stop crossing the Channel, voters will forget about it. You can talk about figures going up but if you don’t see it around you or you don’t see it on the TV, you’ll have achieved something. It’s also a good idea not to put a number on it because you tie yourself to being a hostage of fortune. It’s the right thing to do.”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer gives a speech in Buckinghamshire as he set out his Government’s “plan for change” PAReform UK now believes that Labour is ramping up efforts to combat Farage just weeks after No10 chief Morgan McSweeney briefed baby-faced Labour MPs about the need to address immigration or risk defeat in 2029.
During a series of regional briefings last month, McSweeney told newbie MPs to stop ignoring small boats and legal migration.
Labour also refused to deny that an anti-Reform UK caucus was set up this week in order to thwart Farage.
“We were told that Labour set up an anti-Reform unit in the north to tackle us with the Red Wall caucus,” a Reform UK insider told GB News. “It’s just aimed at stopping us. They’re not threatened by the Tories. And they obviously know that immigration is the big one but what are they actually going to do about it?”
Despite turning his attention to the rise of Reform UK, Starmer appeared to dismiss the need to introduce a net migration cap when quizzed by GB News’ Political Editor Christopher Hope earlier today.
The Prime Minister instead said: “You invited me to put an arbitrary number on it. For 14 years, we had an arbitrary number under the previous Government.
“They said it was a hard cap. It wasn’t hard and it wasn’t a cap. The net result of their deliberate policies was that migration went up … We will not be following that approach.”
He added: “We are going to drive down migration, both legal and illegal. That will only be done with a serious plan. We had a gimmick for a number of years with Rwanda. And what happened? The numbers went up.”
Kemi Badenoch PAOpinium pollster Adam Drummond highlighted why it makes sense for the Prime Minister to avoid setting an “arbitrary” net migration target.
“I don’t think it’s a mistake to not have a specific net migration target,” he told GB News. “Generally speaking Nigel Farage wins any time immigration is the central topic of conversation and having a net migration target would make this more likely.
“Any realistic target Labour set would either be criticised for being too high or criticism every time they fail to hit it, likely both.
“Added to that, there is just no realistic target they could have that would be low enough that Reform wouldn’t just announce a lower one or even a net negative one.
“Ultimately, whether or not Labour gets re-elected depends on whether people feel an improvement in their financial situation and whether they feel the NHS and public services are improving. With both of those situations there’s a case to be made that reducing immigration drastically actually makes them less achievable.”
However, a new opinion poll suggested Reform UK has now leapfrogged Labour into second-place, with 23 per cent support.
Such a scenario could see the populist party pick up 95 seats across Brexit-backing England and Wales, Electoral Calculus’s seat predictor has suggested.
Despite recently celebrating key defections from ex-MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns and influential Tory Tim Montgomerie, 92 of the gains would come at the expense of sitting Labour MPs.
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