Anyone else want to do a Westminster press conference? Keir Starmer made it a hat-trick this afternoon when he gave his reply to the new immigration figures, following Kemi Badenoch’s comments yesterday and Nigel Farage’s response this morning. The Prime Minister’s team gave it the full No. 10 treatment: the flags, the lectern, Starmer looking statesmanlike as he used the trappings of office for all they were worth.
From the bully pulpit of Downing Street, he intoned gravely about the revised 2023 figures that showed net migration exceeding 900,000. The Tories, he said, were guilty of running an ‘open borders experiment’ by ‘design, not accident’. Policies were reformed ‘deliberately’ to ‘liberalise immigration’, with Brexit exploited ‘for that purpose’. At times, Starmer sounded almost mocking: ‘Global Britain – remember that slogan? A policy with no support and which they then pretended wasn’t happening’. By contrast, Labour offers ‘graft not gimmicks’.
The politics were solid then – but what about the actual policy?
He firmly fixed his guns on Badenoch too, following her mea culpa yesterday.
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