Sir Keir Starmer has blasted the Conservatives, accusing them of running an “open border experiment” as he laid out Labour’s reaction to the latest migration figures.
The Prime Minister was responding to the latest data, which revealed net migration to the UK hit a record 906,000 in 2023.
Starmer told a press conference: “Time and again the Conservative Party promised they would get the numbers down. Time and again they failed.
“A failure on this scale isn’t just bad luck, it isn’t a global trend or taking your eye off the ball. No, this is a different order of failure. This happened by design, not accident.”
Starmer gave a press conference where he blasted the Tories’ record on migration
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The Prime Minister said that Labour will will “turn the page” on the issue and announced a deal with Iraq that he claimed will tackle people smuggling upstream “before it reaches our shores.”
He said: “I’m pleased to announce today a new security agreement between Iraq and the UK. This is a world first, that will help us smash the people smuggling gangs and secure our borders.
“The Home Secretary has been out in Iraq to seal this deal, and we’ve also announced funding for Iraqi law enforcement to tackle this problem upstream, way before it reaches our shores.
“We’re also tackling the utter mess we inherited in the Home Office.”
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Home Secretary Yvette Cooper speaks with Iraq’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Fuad Hussein
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The Prime Minister announced he would be reforming the points-based system and crack down on abuse of visa routes.
He told the press conference: “We will publish a white paper imminently, which sets out a plan to reduce immigration.
“The migration advisory committee is already conducting a review and where we find clear evidence of sectors that are overreliant on immigration, we will reform the points-based system and make sure that applications for the relevant visa routes, whether it’s the skilled worker route or the shortage occupation list, will now come with new expectations on training people here in our country.
“We will also crack down on any abuse of the visa routes. For far too long, we’ve been casual about malpractice in our labour market, which sends a clear signal overseas that we’re a soft touch. Well, no more – our rules will be enforced. Any employers who refuse to play ball, they’ll be banned from hiring overseas labour.”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a press conference on migration at 10 Downing Street
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The Prime Minister hit out at the previous government as a ‘loss of control’ since they won the 2019 General Election.
He told a press conference: “When you say people have been let down, you are absolutely right because they were promised by the last government that we would get control of our borders and we had a government that completely lost control of our borders.
“This sort of increase is unprecedented. It is off the scale what has happened in four short years. The way to get it down is the hard graft, not the gimmicks but the hard graft of driving it own on the skills agenda, migration advisory committee, making sure we are cracking down on employers that are breaking the rules.”
The Prime Minister earlier described the situation as “really stark”, and claimed numbers had quadrupled since 2019.
He added: “This isn’t immigration that has gone up by a few thousand. This is policy under the last government that has driven immigration up to record levels, a complete loss of control.”