Labour is still trying outdo Reform on immigration

Sometimes the news is so depressing you could forgive people for thinking that all hope is lost.

The sorry sight of a Labour minister scrapping with Reform to prove who is more anti-immigration is now so familiar you could set your watch by it.

And so it was when a row broke out between Reform’s Robert Jenrick and Labour minister Jo White about who was more committed to ‘stopping the boats.’ He claimed she wasn’t, she was at pains to point out she was.

Jenrick posted a doctored clip in an apparent ttempt to smear her and then hurriedly deleted his post after White corrected him, and he faced calls to apologise. 

Instead of simply demanding that Jenrick apologise, we should be asking why Jo White is apparently hellbent on stopping migrants from entering our country.

Nonetheless, Robert Jenrick and Reform are despicable in their disgraceful attempt to try to smear another MP by doctoring footage. It’s a perfect example of why so many people have lost faith in politics. 

Successive governments and politicians of all stripes have tried to scapegoat migrants, and it’s impossible to separate that rhetoric from the far-right hate and violence on our streets. 

This new Labour administration, led by Andy Burnham is, in his words, supposed to be a circuit break from the last short-lived one, but is shaping up to be no different. 

My parents came to this country from Bangladesh. For me, immigration is not a political football – it’s my family’s reality, and it’s the story of millions of people who have helped build modern Britain. 

My parents came here with hope, hard work and a belief that this country offered opportunity. Like countless migrant families before and since, they worked, paid taxes, raised children and contributed to the community. 

They are not a political football to be kicked while politicians try to one up each other and squabble over a recording. 

I am a Deputy Leader of a national political party today because of the upbringing my parents gave me. I would not be writing these words today without the opportunities they built here. I will never apologise for who I am, however much the colour of my skin or my religion upsets some. 

The Green Party is unafraid to say, with our full chests, what too many politicians are frightened to say: immigration has enriched our country economically, culturally, socially, in every way. Our diversity is our strength. 

But it seems that Labour ministers still seem determined to echo Reform’s language in the hope that voters will reward them for it. 

They won’t and Keir Starmer’s disastrous two years in Number 10 should prove that. 

We face soaring housing costs, crumbling public services and stagnant wages. None of these problems were caused by a nurse who arrived from Nigeria, an engineer from Poland, or families fleeing war and climate destruction. 

They were caused by years of political choices that failed to invest in our communities.

The Green Party in the last 12 months has been trying to change that. As our membership skyrockets, so has our vote in the very communities Labour has abandoned over the years. 

We will always stand in solidarity with migrant communities, refugees and people seeking sanctuary. We will always defend the principle that every person deserves dignity, whatever their place of birth. 

Our priority is creating safe and managed legal routes for refugees, ending the enormous waste of the failed hostile environment, tackling exploitation in the workplace so migrant workers cannot be used to undercut pay and conditions, and investing in the public services and affordable homes that benefit everyone. 

These are not competing priorities. Our politics is one of hope. 

It is the politics that reject the division both Labour and Reform continue to sow. I know which Britain my parents believed in when they came here, and I know which Britain I want my children to inherit. 

The Green Party would never threaten people who are settled in our county with deportation, as Labour has been doing under Starmer’s leadership. 

I had hoped that a new Prime Minister in Andy Burnham would mark a change to the kind of anti-immigrant pandering we endured under Keir Starmer, but he looks more and more like Starmer 2.0 every day. 

But there is hope and it lies with the Green Party

We celebrate our country and our communities in all their diversity. It is with welcoming people and looking after those who need our help, that makes Britain what it is. 

Not trying to out-Reform Reform. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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