Diane Abbott: My party is playing a mug’s game by following Farage on migration

With its boasts about deportations, Labour risks becoming Reform-lite, warns Diane Abbott – and should not be chasing anti-immigrant votes

This week has seen the Labour Party gradually sinking further into the abyss on race and migration – by increasingly mimicking Reform.

Our most recent Facebook post boasts about the number of immigrants we have deported, copying the exact colour and design of Reform ads. Strikingly, these postings have no Labour branding. And now we are publishing videos of immigration raids targeting illegal workers.

This sharp rightward turn on race and migration comes at the same time of the emergence of a number of groups of backbench Labour MPs demanding more aggressive anti-immigrant messaging from the party. Among other things, they want to copy the Tories – not just in rhetoric, but by resurrecting the idea of processing asylum applications off-shore somewhere in the global South.

Diane Abbott: Our most recent Facebook post boasts about the number of immigrants we have deported, copying the exact colour and design of Reform ads (Facebook)

Disproportionate numbers of MPs clamouring for the party to present itself as Reform-lite are from the 2024 intake. These colleagues were elected on a triumphant rising tide and now seem panicked by how unpopular the party has become – and how rapidly. They have been taken aback by the indications of serious voter discontent like people coming up to them in the street to make their feelings felt.

It does not seem to occur to them that among the reasons we are currently so unpopular is cutting the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, but softening the tax regime for non-doms. Our voters do not understand why we will not listen to frozen pensioners, but have open ears for millionaires disgruntled at having to pay some more tax (or not being allowed to continue not paying tax at all). Too many MPs, instead of addressing the root economic causes of voters’ discontent, prefer to scapegoat immigrants.

But chasing after anti-immigrant votes is a mug’s game. One simple point is that very many people who complain about “immigrants” use the term to refer to anybody non-white. So, some of the people they are complaining about are, in fact, British nationals.

More importantly, the Labour Party can never outdo Reform on anti-immigrant rhetoric and should not even try. All that happens is that we give legitimacy to the Reform narrative – and in the end, many people will conclude that they might as well vote for the real thing.

There is also a risk that by pursuing anti-immigrant policies and soundbites we will alienate core Labour voters in our big cities who might vote Green or (more likely) just stay home. We saw that with the Gaza issue. The party leadership thought that they could also ignore the opinions of ordinary Labour Party voters on Gaza. As a consequence, we lost four (hitherto) solidly Labour seats and won other seats only very narrowly.

It is important to bear in mind, in order to emulate Reform on immigration, we would have to drive a coach and horses through our obligations under international human rights legislation. Keir Starmer happens to be a human rights lawyer by profession. Does he really want to trash his reputation – and Britain’s with it?

There is no doubt that these are very difficult times to stand up for ethical policies on race and migration. All over Europe, anti-immigrant parties are piling up votes. And in the United States, they have just elected Donald Trump as president for the second time, when his core political narrative has always been about stoking hatred and fear of migrants. In 2016, at his campaign launch, he said of Mexican migrants: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

But the countries that send the most asylum seekers to the UK are war zones like Afghanistan and Syria. A sustainable solution to the waves of refugees criss-crossing the globe must mean working for peace. And stopping most of the thousands of men, women and children risking their lives crossing the English Channel in rubber boats could be achieved by processing the applications, not “offshore” in the global South but in northern France, a facility that the French have offered. Instead, we prefer to echo Tory rhetoric about “stopping the boats”.

No good will come of trying to turn Labour into Reform-lite. Instead, we should concentrate on policies that put money into ordinary people’s pockets – including measures which redistribute wealth. We should also not be afraid to stand up for policies which reflect historic Labour values and protect the vulnerable.