Starmer fails to say whether he backs migration to boost growth

SIR KEIR STARMER has refused twice to say whether he supports higher migration to promote economic growth, despite official Labour policy being to bring numbers down.

The Office for Budget Responsibility based a number of its assumptions in its report for the Budget on the idea that the population will increase. This rise will be fuelled by greater immigration.

Asked during an interview whether he supported more economic migration as a means of securing more growth, Sir Keir, the Labour leader, said: “We need a proper plan for growth, and that is what the Labour Party has set out.

“It is about supply chains, it is about long-term decision-making, it is about making sure that public sector investment is matched by private sector investment.”

Asked again whether he supported the idea of more migration to grow the economy, Sir Keir replied: “I think the way to grow the economy is to have a long-term plan, a strategic plan, dealing with planning, dealing with supply chains, making sure that the Government can ensure that private investment comes in.

“I don’t think that that should be done in the way the Government has done it, which is simply their only plan for growth is migration, and they have got to explain that and be honest to the public about what their plan for growth really is.”

Labour’s official position is that it would like to reduce illegal immigration with a tougher approach to small boat migrant crossings. It also wants to reduce legal migration by ending firms’ reliance on cheap foreign labour.

On Thursday, a Conservative source said: “It’s no wonder Sir Keir Starmer can’t answer the question. He doesn’t know what to say because he doesn’t have a plan.

“The public should be in no doubt that if Starmer gets into Number 10, Britain would be overwhelmed with a tidal wave of immigration – just like under the last Labour government.”