Keir Starmer went on asylum, and small boats. That in itself should tell you the key point about today’s PMQs. Historically, immigration, and anything related to it, has been a losing issue for Labour (just as the NHS has been a losing issue for the Tories). But the day after Rishi Sunak published an illegal migration bill
clearly weaponised for political purposes, Starmer marched towards the gunfire.
It was a sign of confidence. And that confidence was merited because, at the very least, Labour can easily hold its own against the Tories on this issue.
Ed Miliband or Jeremy Corbyn would have avoided the topic because draconian asylum policies that tend to poll well with floating voters, and are hugely popular with the papers they read, tend to make Labour party members and MPs recoil with horror. When Miliband was leader, there was a row just because he put the slogan “controls on immigration” on a party mug. This explains the thrust of the Sunak attack today, as he claimed that Labour just favours “unlimited asylum” (see
12.05pm) and is opposed to all controls. Here is a flavour of it. Sunak said:
The reality is on this issue, [Starmer] has been on the wrong side … of this issue his entire career. He described all immigration law as racist. He said it was a mistake to control immigration. And he has never, ever voted for tougher asylum laws. It is clear while he is hock to the open border activists, we’re on the side of the British people …
He wanted to, in his words, scrap the Rwanda deal. He voted against measures to deport foreign criminals and he even argued against deportation flights. We know why, because on this matter he talked about his legal background. He’s just another lefty lawyer standing in our way.
As a line of attack, there is probably some mileage in it. There are people who don’t like “lefty lawyers”. But this sort of rhetoric only appeals to the core vote. More importantly, it is just not true to say that Labour is proposing unlimited asylum. It is a sign of how desperate this all sounded that the point about Starmer calling all immigration law racist came from a Guido Fawkes blog, quoting
something Starmer wrote 35 years ago.
(Incidentally, Starmer was right on this. The Home Office itself actually said
in an internal report that “during the period 1950-1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK”. But you can see why Starmer won’t make that argument during an election campaign.)
The conventional Tory attack lines about Labour and asylum don’t work partly because policy has firmed up over Labour. More importantly, the fact that Starmer led the Crown Prosecution Service gives him considerable credibility on this. “When I was in charge of prosecutions I extradited countless rapists and the conviction rate for people-smuggling was twice what it is today,” he told Sunak.
