Bonfire plotter breaks cover to tell Miliband: Get tough on immigration
A SENIOR Labour MP named as being involved in a plot to oust Ed Miliband breaks cover today to demand that the party toughens its stance on immigration.
Ian Austin, one of former prime minister Gordon Brown’s closest allies, said senior figures in his party had told him he ‘sounded like the BNP’ when he complained that too many people were coming to Britain.
He said the Labour leadership should embrace tough policies including a ban on benefit payments to new migrants who have paid nothing into the system, fingerprinting at the Calais border, and up-front payments by foreigners for NHS care.
The intervention of Mr Austin, a former frontbencher who was a senior adviser to Mr Brown, will add to spiralling pressure on Mr Miliband as he fights to save his leadership.
The Dudley North MP was yesterday
BONFIRE NIGHT PLOT TO OUST ED
From yesterday’s Mail
named in Westminster, along with Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk, as being among those who have called for Mr Miliband to stand down. Several MPs are said to have told Dave Watts, the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, that they believe it is time for a change of leadership.
Former Labour leader Lord Kinnock led a frantic effort to shore up Mr Miliband, praising him as a ‘bright, brave, cool man who relates to people’.
The two main contenders to replace him – Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham – furiously denied they had discussed which of them would take over if the leader is ousted. The party also launched a bizarre Twitter campaign, urging supporters of the Labour leader to post messages with the hashtag #EM4PM.
Mr Miliband’s critics were left in despair when he forgot to deliver a planned section of his party conference speech in September on immigration, as well as the deficit, and they say he appears deeply uncomfortable discussing the issue.
Mr Austin declined to comment on the suggestion he was one of those who had called for Mr Miliband to stand down. He insists his intervention on immigration is meant as a constructive set of proposals that could boost Labour’s credibility on a key issue of concern for voters rather than an attack on the leadership. ‘I think these changes could be introduced now and I’ve urged the Government and the Labour Party leadership to look at them,’ Mr Aus- tin writes in an article for the Daily Mail printed below.
He said he was shocked by the reaction he got when he raised the issue of immigration last week.
‘I stood up in the Commons and said people in Dudley don’t think people should be able to come to Britain and be unemployed. Judging by the emails and letters I’ve received since, most people think that’s plain common sense. I’m afraid it didn’t go down so well in Westminster.’
Despite Labour HQ’s efforts to close down any revolt against Mr Miliband, significant party figures joined the criticism of him yesterday. Joe Haines, Harold Wilson’s former press secretary, condemned Mr Miliband’s ‘Stone Age’ policies and called for big beasts such as David Blunkett, Alistair Darling, Jack Straw and Alan Milburn to have the ‘courage’ to advise him to step down quietly.
‘Tony Benn is dead but his convictions live on in Ed Miliband,’ Mr Haines said. ‘The time for false praise and flattery, prevarication and procrastination, is long past. Ed Miliband should resign his leadership of the Labour Party, voluntarily if possible, forcibly if necessary.’ One MP said: ‘It looks like we’re going to stumble on with Ed – though if Alan Johnson gave the slightest hint he wanted it, he’d be leader by this time tomorrow and prime minister in May. It’s a desperate situation.’
But Lord Kinnock, a mentor of Mr Miliband, dismissed claims of a plot against him as ‘total puff’. He said: ‘I went into the tearoom [in Parliament], which is the place to go for the lowdown. But after asking around, the response was to deride the very idea that Ed would be ousted.’
‘When the country is trying to recover, when we have got social pressures, who do you want on the bridge? A bright, brave, cool man who relates to people or a gimmicker?’ he said. Former Home Secretary Mr Blunkett insisted there needed to be an end to ‘this bout of political insanity’. But, in comments that will not be seen as entirely helpful, he added: ‘When you are standing on the edge of a cliff it is unwise to believe that by jumping you will suddenly learn to fly.’
Labour’s business spokesman Chuka Umunna, tipped as a potential leader, backed Mr Miliband, saying: ‘Ed is an honest, sincere man of deep beliefs, and these are just some of the reasons why I backed his campaign to become leader.’