LABOUR OPENS THE DOOR TO MIGRANTS
Party to overhaul UK border controls Detention centres will be scrapped No caps on new arrivals
Labour activists yesterday voted for a huge overhaul of border controls and an end to many curbs on migration.
Two years after Jeremy Corbyn campaigned on an election manifesto vowing to end freedom of movement, delegates at the party’s conference backed a move to ‘maintain and extend free movement rights’.
The motion said all immigration detention centres should be scrapped – a move that could lead to the release of potentially dangerous illegals.
It also said migrants should be given an unconditional right to family reunion – making it easier to bring relatives here.
There would be no caps on arrival numbers, or any rules stipulating certain skills or income.
all uK residents would be given the vote, allowing three million Eu nationals to have a say in a potential second referendum.
It is not clear how many of the proposals will make it into Labour’s next general election manifesto. However sources said that Mr Corbyn would abide by conference decisions.
Such a stance would alienate those Labour supporters who voted Leave to tighten up border controls. In other developments:
Conference activists voted in favour of powers to seize landlords’ properties;
The motion called for the ‘stabilisation’ of house prices, an end to right to buy, and a pledge to build two million more council homes;
Drugs firms savaged Labour’s plans to bring down the price of medicines by setting up a state pharmaceuticals firm;
Mr Corbyn appeared to back away from a conference vote to ban private schools, saying he would concentrate on taxing them.
The immigration motion was put down by Labour’s Camberwell and Peckham branch, which is represented in the Commons by Harriet Harman.
It said: ‘Free movement, equality and rights for migrants are socialist values and benefit us all.
‘Labour will include in the manifesto pledges to oppose the current Tory immigration legislation and any curbing of rights.’ It concluded that Labour must ‘actively challenge anti-immigrant narratives’ and extend equal rights to vote to all uK residents.
Eu nationals who have not become citizens can vote in local elections, but not in general elections or referendums.
Tory deputy chairman Paul Scully accused Labour of seeking to gerrymander elections.
‘The right to vote in parliamentary elections and choose the next uK government is rightly restricted to british citizens and those with the closest historic links to our country,’ he said.
‘Labour’s policies on uncontrolled immigration are completely out of touch with public opinion, which is why they want to gerrymander the polls.’
The controversial motion was passed by a show of hands on the last day of the party’s conference in brighton yesterday.
a spokesman for the Labour for Free Movement campaign said: ‘Today we made history. Let it be the moment the Labour movement launched its fightback against xenophobia – and came out fighting tooth and nail for migrants’ rights.’
but Home Secretary Priti Patel said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn does not believe in any limits on immigration. Corbyn’s Labour even wants to extend free movement to more countries and allow potentially dangerous illegal immigrants to roam our streets.’
She added: ‘The british people voted to take back control. It’s only boris Johnson and the Conservatives who will deliver brexit by 31 october and end free movement once and for all.’
alp Mehmet, chairman of the MigrationWatch uK think tank, added: ‘This is a foolhardy call for completely uncontrolled mass immigration as well as for the dismantling of any effective means of removal.
‘Thirty million uK adults – or 60
‘Fighting tooth and nail’
per cent – wish to see immigration reduced. If these reckless policies ever reach the statute book, we will all rue the day, especially the most vulnerable in our society.’
The motion said: ‘Confronted with attacks on migrants – from the racist hostile environment to the Conservatives’ immigration bill that plans to end free movement and strip the rights of working-class migrants – we stand for solidarity, equality and freedom.
‘Scapegoating, ending free movement and attacking migrants’ rights are attacks on all workers. They make migrant workers more precarious and vulnerable to hyperexploitation, pressing down wages and conditions for everyone.
‘They divide us, making it harder to unionise and push back.’