Labour thinks it can win on immigration. Their new strategy was road-tested today at PMQs as backbencher Olivia Bailey opened the session saluting Keir Starmer’s gang-busting policies. ‘Internationalist co-operation, shared intelligence and joint law enforcement,’ said Bailey, ‘are the best way to end the vile people-smuggling trade.’
Starmer rose to agree with his stooge. ‘The broken immigration system’ of the Tories is being fixed, he said, and 9,400 people ‘who have no right to be here’ are being rounded up and sent packing. ‘We got the flights off the ground,’ he boasted.
This blew Kemi Badenoch off course. She wanted to talk about Louise Haigh, the ex-transport minister.
‘He knowingly appointed a convicted fraudster to the cabinet,’ said Kemi. ‘What was he thinking?’
Kemi’s off-hand comments are apt to sound foolish
Starmer blamed the evil Tories for everything, naturally, and said that Haigh’s prompt resignation made a telling contrast with the previous government. Kemi tried again.
‘She was only asked to resign after further information came to light. What was that further information?’
Starmer offered a ropy excuse. ‘I’m not going to discuss private conversations,’ he said, as if Louise Haigh were the monarch whose interactions with her prime minister must be clothed in secrecy lest the realm fall. He then returned to immigration and said that ‘open borders’ under the Tories had led to a million new arrivals. They tussled over responsibility.
‘He was the one writing letters asking us not to deport foreign criminals,’ said Kemi. Starmer countered that ‘she was the one cheering them on,’ as the Tories allowed net-migration to soar.
Kemi tried a scripted line about Louis Haigh’s record as a fraudster. ‘The country needs conviction politicians not politicians with convictions.’
Inevitably Starmer recalled that her cabinet chums, Boris and Rishi, had ‘convictions’ for breaching the Covid rules. This is Kemi’s problem. She has barely a square inch of turf on which to fight. She was better today. Nimbler, more relaxed and self-assured. But she hasn’t scratched the hide of her ox-like opponent. Starmer’s inflexible demeanour and slow-footed hauteur make him hard to break down. She hasn’t found his weak spot because he’s titanium-plated – like some freak robot from outer space.
And Kemi’s off-hand comments are apt to sound foolish. After calling the Budget ‘a fraud’, she decided to set out her role as opposition leader. ‘We are here to stop him damaging the economy,’ she said. Gales of laughter drowned her out. That loose remark will turn into a running gag which Starmer can quote at her again and again.
Her failure to mention the winter fuel allowance is another unforced error. This task was left to the SNP’s backbenchers. And they had an open goal. The Scottish government wants to keep granny warm this winter and their policy puts Labour members of Holyrood in a tight spot. Do they support Starmer and oppose the restoration of the emergency payment in Scotland? Or do they vote with their SNP foes?
Pete Wishart asked Starmer to advise his Labour colleagues. Starmer answered with mini-rant about the SNP.
‘They have the power,’ he bellowed. ‘They have the resources. They have no more excuses for their failure to deliver!’
He ducked the issue itself. Which is interesting. On a side-note, if he considers the SNP incompetent, why has he palmed them an extra £4.9 billion?
The SNP’s Kirsty Blackman told the house that ‘900,000 Scottish pensioners are being left out in the cold by Labour’s cuts.’
Starmer ducked it again. He said he’d enjoyed working with Scottish Labour during the election in July. ‘We ran a fantastic campaign which is why she’s sitting up there and not down there.’ And he waved an airy hand towards the benches now occupied by the Lib Dems.
Starmer has no answer on the winter fuel payments. This is obvious to everyone in Westminster apart from Kemi and her clueless coterie of advisers. How much longer will he get away with it?
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