Starmer’s tough immigration talk shows he takes the public for fools

Inviting voters to “read my lips” has been associated with political lies ever since the first President Bush pledged “no new taxes”, only to acquiesce when Congress put them up. So Sir Keir Starmer’s prelude to his promise to cut immigration – saying “read my lips” – was appropriate enough. The claim is utter nonsense.

Neither Starmer nor his party has the appetite to do what it takes to control immigration. It was Starmer himself who wrote that there is a “racist undercurrent which permeates all immigration law”. Barbara Roche, a former Labour MP, summed up the mentality when she described being made immigration minister. “I was appalled” by the very idea of doing the job, she said, explaining that her political beliefs were built on “campaigning against racism”.

This helps to explain why, when it comes to every single visa route, and every single humanitarian crisis anywhere in the world, the Labour response is always to oppose restrictions and demand more immigration.

Their response to the Channel crossings is to complain about the time it takes to process asylum claims, not the numbers coming. Their worry is about the danger of the journeys, not the destruction of border security. The reason it is so difficult to remove illegal immigrants and foreign criminals – our human rights laws, based on the European Convention on Human Rights – is an article of almost religious belief for them.

Just four years ago, Starmer wrote a public letter to the Labour Campaign for Free Movement. Given his claim to be tough on immigration, the content is extraordinary. Declaring he is “proud to have served as Jeremy [Corbyn’s] shadow immigration minister”, Starmer boasted he had sued the government to increase benefits for asylum seekers.

Complaining that the immigration system aims to “deter, not support” migrants coming to Britain illegally, he set out several policies. He would close immigration detention centres, allow asylum seekers to work, liberalise family reunion rules, and give some foreigners the vote.

This was not the only letter he signed. At around the same time, along with a long list of his MPs and shadow ministers, including supposed moderate Wes Streeting, Starmer backed a letter demanding the suspension of a flight deporting foreign criminals to Jamaica – and the suspension of “all future charter flights”. Among the other demands was that all those due to be deported must be given free mobile phones and better access to lawyers until the last minute before deportation.

For around 50 of the deportees, Starmer was granted his wish. In a novel human rights ruling, the Court of Appeal found that a problem with the O2 signal at the detention centres near Heathrow meant they had not had unrestricted access to lawyers, and so must not be deported. Among those allowed to stay in Britain, several were subsequently convicted of serious offences, including assault, stalking, and selling heroin and cocaine.

So the idea that Starmer means what he says about immigration is preposterous. But it is hardly the only example of Labour’s leader playing fast and loose with the truth. Take the saga involving Diane Abbott, whom Starmer sought to remove as the Labour candidate in Hackney North and Stoke Newington, only to cave when Angela Rayner and others resisted.

Abbott was suspended by Labour in April last year after making light of anti-Semitism. Just two Fridays ago, Starmer refused to comment on her future because of “the investigation… that’s not yet finally resolved.” That same day Labour officials briefed that the inquiry was still ongoing, and shadow ministers had been saying the same for months. Yet last week the BBC confirmed that the process had concluded in December last year.

The casual dishonesty comes up time and again. Starmer claimed it was “not true” he had stopped Abbott from standing, but Abbott confirmed, “I am banned from standing.” Labour claimed the National Executive Committee process was independent even of the party leader, but Starmer had previously claimed credit for tabling a motion banning Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour MP.

The dishonesty runs through the campaign. Having promised to abolish the House of Lords while running for leader, only to change the policy to limiting the number of peers and strengthening the quango overseeing appointments, Starmer is reported to have dangled peerages before MPs to encourage them to stand down.

The energy policy he once said would cost £28 billion a year he now claims he will deliver at less than one fifth of the cost. The savings he promises the policy would bring consumers appear to be based on sums made with out-of-date figures.

Using Rishi Sunak’s aspiration to one day abolish employee National Insurance contributions altogether, Starmer is presenting it as an immediate but unfunded policy goal, and so claims it will be paid for by cutting the state pension or increasing the pension age.

In fact it is Labour that has consistently questioned the pensions triple lock, and Labour that has refused to back the Tory policy to increase the personal tax allowance for pensioners in line with the state pension – prompting the suspicion that Labour plans to tax pensions. As John Rentoul, the Blairite commentator, says, this is “low politics… cynical and wrong.”

Cynicism is indeed the leitmotif of Starmer’s leadership. He appears to have observed politicians from Tony Blair and Boris Johnson and concluded that honesty comes at a steep price, while shamelessness wins the day. He is after all the man who called Jeremy Corbyn a “friend”, only to deny his friendship when it suited him.

He promised Labour members he would increase income tax, support the continued free movement of people with Europe, nationalise the rail and utility companies, scrap tuition fees and Universal Credit, and end outsourcing across the public sector – only to junk those policies on becoming leader.

Indeed, this was the entirety of his policy pitch to Labour members, but now he erroneously claims that “most [of the policies] are still in place.” He took his members for fools, and now he is taking the country for fools. We cannot say we have not been warned.

Nick Timothy is standing for the Conservatives in West Suffolk