Starmer has betrayed the Labour Party, and he doesn’t want Corbyn around as a reminder

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To win the Labour leadership Starmer had to pretend to be a Labour traditionalist, like Corbyn (Reuters)

In the 2017 general election, the Labour voter turnout under Jeremy Corbyn was the largest for the party this century. The 2019 general election, though spun as a supposed Corbyn disaster, still had a turnout that beat the last previous efforts of Ed Miliband, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.

The reason Corbyn was allowed on the leadership ballot in the first place was because the party was desperately trying to reconnect with its lost grassroots voters. Between the 1997 anti-Tory sleaze vote and Gordon Brown’s disaster in 2010, New Labour lost the party millions of voters. But under Corbyn Labour saw membership soar.

In order to win the Labour leadership job, Keir Starmer had to pretend to be a Labour traditionalist, like Corbyn. The commitments he made then he has now betrayed. He probably doesn’t want Corbyn around as a physical reminder of this.

Dr Gavin Lewis

Manchester

Labour is in tune with the electorate again

Oh, what a joy to hear that Labour would freeze council tax for a year paid for by a proper windfall tax on oil and gas giants. This is a party, that, under the magnificent leadership of Keir Starmer, is finally in time with the electorate again.

Which is more than can be said for a Conservative Party at war over the future of Boris Johnson, a Conservative Party at war over what to do with vulnerable asylum seekers, a Conservative Party at war over taxation, and a Conservative Party that clearly only cares for the richest 1 per cent in society.

Geoffrey Brooking

Hampshire

Plight of a war hero

If an Afghan pilot who flew with our forces can’t find a “safe and legal” route here, who can?

Despite the suggestions of the Home Office, the war hero could hardly approach the manifestly unreformed Taliban for verification of his paperwork with any expectation of success or even safety.

The current anti-migration policy is dog-whistle politics intended to appease the unfortunately large xenophobic, hard-right wing of the Tory party rather than deal humanely with the problem.

A government that can afford to pad out the offshore accounts of its supporters with hundreds of millions of pounds, can afford to put in place a safe system to receive and process those who wish to come here, either for asylum or indeed economic gain.

We should allow them to work and contribute while this is going on: the costs would be minimised, the economy boosted, and the tax take raised. Plus it would prevent migrants from disappearing under the radar into the exploitative grey economy. Those genuinely not warranting asylum or bringing needed labour capacity/skills could then be returned whence they came or directed with agreement to states that would appreciate their input.

Mike Margetts

Kilsby

Don’t blame migrants for NHS woes

Steve McKinder is wrong in his recent letter to The Independent, suggesting that new arrivals to the UK as asylum seekers are placing more pressure on the NHS.

I’m afraid that it’s mostly down to me, or at least people of my age. After decades of excellent health, and not unlike many of our ageing population, I am starting to creak. So, I am very grateful and not a little ashamed, that whilst 83 per cent of the NHS workforce are UK nationals, some 33 per cent of doctors and 24 per cent of nurses are migrants.

Or, to put it another way, someone else has paid to train the nurses and doctors who cared for me. I know because I asked them. No doubt a modest percentage of those currently waiting an inordinate length of time for their asylum hearings to be heard are also medical professionals, and the majority are likely at the very least to be potential taxpayers.

Philip Morgan

Audley

We must restore decency to the asylum debate

We have a government that has a proven disregard for the welfare of its own citizens. What hope can there be that the plight of foreigners will be met with compassion when the UK is culpable in them seeking refuge?

Afghanistan springs immediately to mind. They find it far more expedient to abandon decency in the treatment of migrants, and to renege on the treaties and international conventions that we’ve abided by for many years. Presently we are failing as a “humane and welcoming nation” and the migrants are not to blame.

We need to restore a sense of balance and decency. The boat market in immigrants is a Tory flotation that Rishi “U-turn” Sunak has pledged to end, and he has a moral obligation to do so. Whether relative newcomers or residents of longer standing, we in the UK are a melding of peoples and, without exception, post-Ice Age immigrants.

David Nelmes

Newport