Labour’s head in the sand on immigration

THEY really don’t get it. Senior Labour figures still don’t understand how shamefully out of touch they are with their own voters on the profoundly troubling question of EU immigration.

Unbelievably, Alan Johnson, leader of Labour’s In campaign, claimed yesterday that staying in the EU will help us to control our borders. His assertion will be treated with the derision it deserves, for Brussels insists on free movement – enabling millions of EU citizens to settle in Britain in the past decade. Meanwhile, former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown refused even to take questions about immigration. In 2010, Mr Brown conveyed the boundless scorn felt by the Labour high command for its own followers when he dismissed Gillian Duffy, a lifelong Labour voter concerned about immigration, as a ‘bigoted woman’. Jeremy Corbyn refused to allow immigration to be mentioned in Labour’s referendum literature, and in his speech yesterday instead urged voters to back Remain ‘to defend our NHS’.

Almost farcically, he was simultaneously rebuffed by Tom Watson, his deputy leader, former Cabinet minister Ed Balls, and former frontbenchers Rachel Reeves and Tristram Hunt.

After a decade of ignoring Labour voters’ entirely reasonable concerns about immigration, the party’s credibility on this issue is shot to pieces.

No wonder Labour voters are flocking to vote for Brexit. It’s their chance to show they’re fed up with being ignored by the remote, hampered and insufferably arrogant Westminster elite.