Sir Keir Starmer will accuse Tories of seven years of broken promises on migration
SIR Keir Starmer will tomorrow accuse the Tories of seven years of broken promises on migration.
The Labour leader will use a speech on the fourth anniversary of the 2019 General Election to accuse the Government of squandering the faith voters put in them to sort out Britain’s borders.
Instead of creating a high pay economy and training more Brits, he will point to record net migration figures that topped 700,000 last year to accuse ministers of throwing open jobs to foreigners instead.
Sir Keir will say: “Yes, Brexit was a vote for lower immigration — of course it was.
"But it was also a vote for the idea that we need to renew; that hard work should be rewarded with a wage people can live on. And for the Tories, that’s the rub.
“Seven years they’ve had to make Brexit work.
"But every time they run up against a choice of whether to raise skills and improve working conditions or issue visas, they choose higher migration. It’s who they are.”
Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall yesterday refused to back the Government’s plan to raise the minimum salary threshold for migrants to £38,000 — despite her party calling for it to go up from the previous limit of £18,600.
Cabinet Minister Michael Gove, meanwhile, said that measures announced by Home Secretary James Cleverly last week show the Tories’ determination to reduce the “unacceptable” net migration figures.