Labour MPs are insisting that the Prime Minister makes a firm stance on the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to help take “control” of the UK’s borders to stop the boats.
Labour MPs are nervous about this week’s local elections as Nigel Farage’s party is predicted to win between 450 and 500 council seats.
A Labour MP told The Telegraph that Reform UK is “riding the crest of the wave,” adding, “In my constituency, the number one issue is tackling immigration.
“People need to see the boats being halted and the numbers coming down, and the whole system functioning much more effectively.”
Labour MP Graham Stringer said, “If the results are as bad as predicted on Thursday, the Labour Party mustn’t come out and say it’s a question of just communicating our policies better.
“Most of all, we need to take control of the borders. If that means renegotiating or changing our international obligations, then we need to do that. But we cannot continue to have open borders because of laws passed in the early 1950s.”
Stringer was asked should the UK leave the ECHR, he said, “Certainly. Either modifying or leaving it.”
Barnsley borough council leader Sir Stephen Houghton slammed Sir Keir Starmer, he told The Telegraph, “Reform comes along and says, ‘well, the problem is migration’, where the problem clearly isn’t migration.
“Investment is needed in those places to bring them up to an economic standard and secondly, in the short term, we need to do things to help them with the cost of living, because these are deprived communities on low incomes and even if they are working, life is a struggle.
“The Government’s capital investment strategy cannot just focus on big cities.”
