What can labour do about immigration?

[CrispyEye]

Current poles showing Reform is way ahead of labour now. I’m so worried Reform will win the next general election if Labour don’t get a grip on this issue. And I say that as a Tory voter.

Realistically, what can Labour do, what should they be doing and do we think they will do it?

Yes. I’ve never voted Tory but I found rishi likeable. He seems like a decent man

The media did a doozy on him. Now we have Starmer.

Starmer has to be the weakest Prime Minister we have had- such a shame as he is clearly an intelligent man.

Labour were given a real chance but they are blowing it big time. They seem to be going for vulnerable targets such as disabled people constantly yet the topic of immigration is off limits. It winds people up.

There seems to be a trend to bash this country and proclaim how racist and intolerant it is constantly. To me it is one of the most welcoming in the world and its generosity is taken the piss out of by many (not all) who arrive. How many countries would offer free healthcare for anyone visiting? We all accept that visiting other countries that as a visitor using their healthcare will be extortionate unless we have insurance. Their customs and values are respected- again if they were not then it would be imprisonment or deportation without some stupid argument about it being racist. Why on earth is that not the case here? Our government is far too soft and that’s why we have people coming here illegally every single day from the safety of France. There is nothing dangerous waiting for them there. If we were right next door to a war torn and dangerous country I’d understand but we are not. You have to cross sea to get here from safe countries ffs. It is this, the lack of affordable public rental housing and everything being understaffed and crap that is driving much of the resentment.

He seemed fairly genuine too but just went quiet- less communicative- no one knew what he was doing.

Id have him back over 2 tier Keir though. To be honest I’d even have Boris back over Keir 😂

Rishi got stitched up - he came in far too late to the game and by that point, the general public stopped listening and wanted "anybody but Tory" . Can't get on-board with Boris though, sorry 😂

Me neither. But I liked rishi. Reasonably competent and a decent guy imo. I loved that documentary about him where he went to the football and his cousin joked that his parents would be prouder if he’d been a doctor

A decent man? He was caught on camera laughing about taking allocated spending budgets away from poor councils and giving them to richer ones, the video was all over the mainstream media at the time:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=xegB9J-mn1A

He worked for Goldman Sachs, that's how you know he's a scumbag banker wanker just like all the rest of them.

Exactly sunak was only about preserving existing power structures to keep himself and his friends wealthy.

I can't see that Sunak is laughing in your clip - he looks quite serious.

What he meant to say was that Labour's funding formulas (which had been retained) directed funding to poor urban areas - neglecting rural and coastal areas (such as Kent) with pockets of need and poor bus services or poor broadband.

I believe that several of Labour's cabinet ministers are married to people who work in financial services.

Interesting that you say:

"it’s incredible given brexit etc political parties are still dithering around the edges."

If I'm understanding you right, you're saying that the result of the Brexit vote showed that most people in the UK are anti-immigration... and that politicians know this.

And you're saying that immigration was what people were really voting on in the EU referendum.

I'm just reminding myself that the Brexit vote was very close - 51.9 percent voted to leave and 48.1 percent voted to stay. Do we even know what 51.9 and 48.1 means? Do we even know what people thought they were voting for or against? Should there even have been a referendum on it in the first place?

Timing unfortunately. Sunak came in when his party were done for after Johnson and Truss (and Cameron and May before them). 14 awful years of governance but Sunak himself was okay.

Starmer is just a hopeless PM. Would be okay as foreign sec, as schmoozing with world leaders is the only thing he's comfortable with.

Yes think Starmer prefers being abroad dipping in and out of foreign affairs to facing the music at home

Unfortunately true, think Sunak would have proved to be a very able prime minister in time but his party was so damaged by what went before it couldn’t survive. Not sure what I think of reform, but pretty sure if they had a couple of years more to prepare, labour would not have gained the landslide it did

If they made Sunak PM instead of Truss he may have beat Starmer. They weren't recovering from that.

Of course people knew what they were voting for. 9 years on and this question or presumption, still gets bandied about. Whether they are happy with how the result has been implemented, is another matter.

Any party who really wants to reduce immigration needs to focus on the pull factors and pretty much ignore the physical acts of entry.

People will always find a way in if they want to come so if you want to stop it rather than targeting the entry stop them wanting to come.

Reform are not far right - but they might get into power in a few years - i say this as a conservative voter - i will never vote for reform. Not sure what Labour can do tbf - but happy to see them give it a go.

Reform wants to cut PIP cut disability cut universal benefits that’s what Farage has said so all the people who slammed labour when they tried to do a fraction of that won’t be voting forReform will they?

Remove all benefits from immigrants. If you need government assistance, you go back to your country of origin in order to receive it.

Exactly right

In Europe (coming mostly to Greece a million in one year) they paid money to Turkey to provide accommodation etc for the immigrants, gave Turks the ability to travel to the EU without a visa (so local pop approved), bribed Turkey a bit. Declared a date the immigrants would be immediately returned to Turkey and actually did it.

You might wonder how Turkey coped with all these immigrants -well they didn’t -once the knew they’d be immediately returned the immigrants stopped coming……. Common sense and determination fixed the problem -why no Gov for 20 years in the UK does this I don’t know.

Learnt this on a the Rest is politics podcast.

If you arrive illegally, you will never be given right to remain. Also, no-one born abroad can claim benefits until paid in for over 10 years. It really isn't a difficult puzzle to solve.

Really? One of my friends is an immigrant, she has been here since she was 12 or 13. She is now a pensioner and works part time, do you really want to take her pension away?

This is what I don't understand. Polling and research into who backs Reform find the party’s support concentrated in constituencies with: lower population health and higher economic anxiety; ex-industrial and post‑industrial towns.

This FT article touches upon this as well.

https://www.ft.com/content/9a1c3604-68b7-4b1e-be6c-f361137c49be

And yet Reform's 2024 Manifesto proposed stricter eligibility checks for benefits, face-to-face assessments, and significant cuts to welfare spending. Which means Face-to-face assessments will replace remote evaluations for:
Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
Work Capability Assessment (WCA)
Independent medical assessments will be required to prove eligibility for payments.