Rachel Reeves dubbed 'wolf in sheep's clothing' after she predicted riots eight years ago

Rachel Reeves has been accused of being a "wolf in sheep's clothing" by Lee Anderson after the Chancellor predicted riots could sweep the streets if immigration wasn't curbed after Brexit.

The accusation came as towns and cities across the UK braced for more violent protests and clashes between police, protesters and counter-protesters in part sparked by false claims a boy charged with murdering three girls in Stockport was an asylum seeker who arrived in Britain by boat.

Mr Anderson, Reform UK's Ashfield MP, posted an image of a news story published by the Independent news website in which Ms Reeves warned Britain could "explode" into rioting if immigration wasn't brought under control after the UK's exit from the European Union.

The former Conservative Party MP captioned the image: "Look what Labour said. They are nothing short of wolves in sheep's clothing."

Express.co.uk has approached Mr Anderson to elaborate on his remarks. Ms Reeves and the Labour Party have also been approached for comment.

Mr Anderson's comment appears to be an attempt to pin rioting seen this week on Ms Reeves and Labour's position on immigration and Brexit.

In its General Election manifesto, the party vowed to launch a new Border Security Command to smash people smuggling gangs, end the use of hotels to house immigrants and clear a backlog in asylum applications, among other measures.

Since gaining power, the Labour Government has scrapped the Conservatives' policy to deter potential immigrants by threatening to deport them to Rwanda, ended the contract to house people on the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, and rejected Sir Tony Blair's call for digital ID cards to curb migration.

So far this year, more than 16,000 people have arrived in the UK via the English Channel.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said on Tuesday (July 30) the Government would take a new approach to legal migration aimed at boosting skills among Britain's workforce before recruting abroad.

In a ministerial statement published as MPs left Westminster for the summer, she pointed to a rise in non-EU long-term migration from 277,000 in the year to December 2022 to 423,000 in the year to December 2023.

Work visa numbers in the 12 months to March 2024 were, meanwhile, 605,264, or "over three times that of 2019", according to Ms Cooper.

Meanwhile, anti-immigration and anti-racism protesters have clashed across the country, from Belfast to London. At events in Northern Ireland on Saturday (August 3) there were speeches and anti-Nazi chanting on one side and cries of "Islam out" on the other.

Ms Reeves, who was then in opposition, was reported by the Independent to have told a fringe event at Labour's conference in Liverpool that there were "bubbling tensions" over immigration which "could explode".

She was identified in the report as one of several "moderate" Labour MPs who backed Remain but argued should accept curbs on immigration after the 2016 referendum result.

The current Chancellor wrote at that time: "Immigration controls and ending free movement has to be a red line post-Brexit – otherwise we will be holding the voters in contempt."

She also said: "Subject to that, we need the greatest possible access that we can get to the single market without free movement."

Net migration was unusually high last year, according to The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford.

It says that the 685,000 figure was driven by an increase in non-EU citizens coming to the UK, with the majority of the increase in non-EU arrivals from 2019 to 2023 coming via work and study routes, with health and care being the main industry driving the growth in work migration.

Net migration is expected to fall from current levels this year and onwards, although the future outlook is "highly uncertain", according to The Migration Observatory.

EU citizens made up the bulk of immigration and net migration in the run-up to the EU referendum, but since 2021, EU net migration has been negative, according to official estimates cited by the same organisation.