Labour are gaslighting the country on immigration

Keir Starmer is ahead in the polls despite running what is surely the most vague and disingenuous election campaign within political memory.

Just this week, we’ve had promises to fix “up to” a million potholes a year. Rachel Reeves can neither confirm nor deny that investment and council taxes will be hiked, which, as the Financial Times reported yesterday, has left businesses fearing the worst for UK investment. Starmer pledges no new tax rises while simultaneously claiming he would raise “specific taxes”. Would the real Keir Starmer please stand up?

His “Great British Energy” plans are much the same. Without explaining how, he wants voters to believe that their heating bills will go down even though his party has confirmed they will “not be issuing licences to explore new [oil and gas] fields”. It’s pure make-believe. His ban will, in reality, see the UK follow New Zealand into years of ever-rising prices and winter energy blackouts. Labour in New Zealand have now denounced their own plan and repealed it.

Much of this politicking should be ridiculed. Labour trying to paint themselves this week as the friend of the motorist, while their party lumbers towns and cities across the country with ULEZ, 20 mph zones, and cancels new road infrastructure, is only the most recent example. The party has perfected in this election the art of gaslighting voters. The tragedy for our country is that Starmer is getting away with it. Nowhere is it more true than on immigration.

What’s Keir’s plan? It’s to create a new Border Command that will work on tracking down and arresting people smugglers. He tells us that this will work, and he knows best because he used to “bring down terrorists”. In reality, we already have a “Small Boats Operational Command” already working hand in hand with the Home Office and doing all the things Keir’s “new” Command would do. It’s a glorified rebrand being sold to the British public as new policy. Creating a Border Command that already exists. A removals unit that already exists. A cooperation agreement with the French that already exists. It’s insulting and treats voters like they were born yesterday.

One thing he will do is cancel Rwanda. This at a time when Rwanda is being proven to be effective by events in Ireland. Irish politicians are furiously conceding that Rwanda has made the UK a less attractive destination. Fewer people are making the journey now, and many who already have are looking to leave to Ireland instead. Now we’re no longer the honey-pot, we can start negotiations with France from a position of strength.

Keir will obviously throw all this away. He’s said not a single flight to Rwanda will take off. As the EU turns to the right, and is exploring offshore processing plans of its own, Starmer will leave the UK as the only major European country to have no plan at all to deal with mass migration. Contrast him with Sunak, who has promised this week to leave the ECHR if they try to block British law.

Another thing Starmer will do is attempt to sign a returns agreement with the EU. While he and Reeves sometimes pretend this won’t involve a quota, he has previously admitted that accepting EU migrants would be part of a “quid pro quo”. Expert analysis done at the Henry Jackson Society showed that Starmer’s EU deal would mean at least 127,000 more migrants coming every year, which would be the UK’s “share” of EU migration. Again, Starmer hides behind vague promises to conceal what he doesn’t want them to know.

He doesn’t want voters to know about his costly energy plans. Doesn’t want them to know about the roads or about their council taxes. And he certainly doesn't want them to know that he intends to do nothing of any substance on immigration.