U.K. Labour Party works on platform

LONDON — Labour Party leaders met Saturday to hammer out the details of their platform for next month’s U.K. election amid tensions over immigration, which has been central to the debate over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.

Party leader Jeremy Corbyn refused to answer questions about the issue as he arrived for the meeting in central London, saying only that the final policy statement would be “transformative to the lives of people all over this country.”

Party officials in September backed a radical policy of expanding the rights of people to live and work in the U.K., including granting all residents the right to vote. But some Labour members suggest putting such language in the party’s election manifesto would be politically damaging because many people voted for Brexit because they were uneasy about uncontrolled immigration from the EU.

“I think the public voted for change in the way the immigration arrangements work with Europe,” Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham told Sky News on Saturday.

“To deny that, I think, would be to deny what many people were saying when they went to vote in 2016, and that’s just, in my view, a fact. It doesn’t help politicians, it doesn’t help Parliament, if they look like they’re kind of cocooned away from that public view.”

As a European Union member, the U.K. is required to permit the free movement of labor within the bloc, meaning all citizens of other EU countries have the right to live and work in the country. The same rights apply for British citizens to live and work elsewhere in the EU.

Immigration has been a central issue in the debate over EU membership. Brexit supporters argue that Britain needs to regain control of its borders to protect jobs and communities.