Listen: Stephen Kinnock grilled on Labour’s immigration policy on Today

After Ukip’s new leader Paul Nuttall said he planned ‘to replace the Labour party and make Ukip the patriotic voice of working people’, Jeremy Corbyn’s party are under pressure to re-connect with their traditional working class voters.

With that in mind, Stephen Kinnock appeared on the Today programme on Tuesday to talk Labour and immigration. In an interview with Sarah Montague, the Labour MP — and the son of Neil Kinnock — began by conceding that his party had made ‘the huge error of failing to talk enough about immigration’ and have therefore allowed Ukip to ‘step into that place’. So, what is Labour’s plan of action?

While Kinnock tried to lay out his party’s strategy for dealing with immigration worries from voters, the interview didn’t go quite to plan when he revealed that he doesn’t actually think immigration needs to come down:

SK: We’ve got to show people that we in government would manage immigration. We are prepared to set out an agenda that we want an economy that has to work with immigration and that immigration is a vital part of our economy, but there need to be controls in place.

SM: So, when you say manage immigration, do you mean cut immigration?

SK: I don’t think it necessarily has to be cut. What I think people are looking for is a system which they can believe in and trust.

SM: Obviously things are going to be in flux for the next few years but when you look what net immigration is now — 330,000 — you don’t think it needs to come down from that?

SK: I’d like to see sector by sector dialogue. I would like to business, government, and trade unions coming together on a sector by sector basis.

SM: Okay but that number – you’re not my answering my question which is about the number. 300,000 plus doesn’t seem too high for you?

SK: What was deeply damaging was Cameron saying we’re going to get immigration down to tens of thousands and consistently failing.

Mr S suspects his words will have done little to convince those worried about immigration that Labour is finally listening to their concerns.