Sir Keir Starmer accused of ‘embracing’ anti-migrant rhetoric

Mish Rahman said the far-right riots which rocked England and Northern Ireland in August were ‘were inevitable under this climate’

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has come under scrutiny (Phil Noble/PA) (PA Wire)

Sir Keir Starmer’s government has been accused of having “embraced” anti-migrant rhetoric by a former member of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC).

Speaking at an event on the fringes of the Labour conference in Liverpool on Sunday, Mish Rahman said the government has “thrown its own fuel” onto Islamophobia and racism in the UK, adding that the far-right riots which rocked England and Northern Ireland in August “were inevitable under this climate”.

(Photo credit: Harry Rose)

At the same event, Diane Abbott warned that a renewed “austerity drive” would bring an increase in racism with ethnic minorities “bearing the brunt of the government’s attacks”.

Mr Rahman - who was a member of the NEC from 2020-2024 - took aim at Sir Keir for meeting with right-wing Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni earlier this month.

It comes as more than 24,000 migrants have now crossed the English Channel to the UK since the start of the year after 707 people made the crossing on Saturday.

Some 11 boats were intercepted in the busiest day for a week, Home Office figures show.

It brings the total for the year so far to 24,335, which is up one per cent on the number of people who made the crossing by this time last year, but 20 per cent down on 2022.

Mr Rahman said: “We also saw Rishi Sunak courting his best friend who is the far right fascist leader of Italy, Giorgia Meloni. This is the same Meloni that warned that Italians are victims of an ethnic replacement by waves of migrants who she branded criminals and rapists.

“We got rid of the Tories, so things are going to change, you all may say. But last week, or the week before, Keir Starmer met the same far-right fascist Meloni and Keir Starmer was keen to know from Meloni, how her far right government dealt with migration so well.”

Mish Rahman at a ‘Stand up to racism’ event on the fringes of the Labour conference (The Independent)

He continued: “After scrapping the unworkable Rwanda scheme, which is not just unethical in his view - just expensive and unworkable - he’s keen to find out how the Rwanda scheme may be replaced by an Albania scheme.”

Sir Keir met with Ms Meloni in Rome last week, with the Italian prime minister telling a press conference that the Labour leader showed “great interest” in the Italian government’s migrant deal with Albania.

Last year, Italy confirmed plans to open two migrant processing centres in Albania which aim to process 36,000 migrants each year.

The government has argued the system is different from the Conservatives’ Rwanda deportation plan, which they scrapped in July.

Mr Rahman said British politics is now “loaded with anti-migrant, anti-asylum politics and Islamophobia”, continuing: “But the lessons don’t seem to have been heard. In fact, Starmer’s Labour seem to have embraced the current debate by contributing and throwing its own fuel onto the bin fire by promising their own blitz on illegal immigration.”

He added: “The riots over last summer were inevitable under this climate.”

Meanwhile, in a statement read out at the meeting, Ms Abbott warned that the government’s promise that “things will only get worse” presented a “grim outlook” for ethnic minorities in the UK.

She said: “We are in a very difficult period. There is both a renewed war drive and a renewed austerity drive.

“Whenever either of these happens, they are always accompanied by an increase in racism. Now that both are happening simultaneously, black and Asian people in this country, as well as Muslims, are bearing the brunt of the Government attacks.”

Labour has been contacted for comment.