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Keir Starmer during his speech at Labour conference. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
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Starmer: Leaving EU has hampered efforts to return migrants
Good morning. Keir Starmer recorded about 10 broadcast interviews yesterday afternoon, after his conference speech, on the basis that they would all be broadcast this morning. They are playing out now. As you would expect, they are very repetitive – a lot of the questions and the answers are the same – but there are still plenty of new lines in them.
One of his most audacious answers came when he was speaking to Christopher Hope, political editor of GB News, Reform UK’s favourite TV channel. Hope asked if the government would stop the small boats, and Starmer said that the returns agreement that he negotiated with France would make a difference. But then he went on to claim that they were “Farage boats, in many senses” because after Brexit the Dublin convention returns agreement that used to be in place no longer applied.
Here is Starmer’s answer in full.
The returns agreement with France is important because we need to establish that if you come by boat, you will be returned to France.
I accept the numbers [returned so far under the agreement] are low. We had to prove the concept and prove that it could work. We’ve now done that. But now we need to ramp that up.
I would gently point out to Nigel Farage and others that before we left the EU, we had a returns agreement with every country in the EU. And he told the country it will make no difference if we left. Well, he was wrong about that. These are Farage boats, in many senses, that are coming across the channel.
Starmer does not seem to have used this line in other interviews and it is not clear yet whether this is the start of a sustained government attempt to rebrand these as “Farage boats”, or whether Starmer was just trying to wind up Hope, who often asks questions that reflect the views of his Farage-loving viewers.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, made a similar argument in his party conference speech. John Rentoul, the Independent commentator who is broadly sympathetic to Labour, said this morning Davey and Starmer were both wrong to argue that being out of the Dublin convention made much difference to small boat arrival numbers.
Surprised by PM repeating Ed Davey’s bogus analysis: boats are nothing to do with Brexit; & the Dublin convention never worked
But in fact the Dublin convention probably isn’t the key issue. Peter Walsh, a senior researcher at the Migration Observatory, a migration thinktank, argued recently that Brexit is making the small boat problem worse because the UK no longer has access to an EU fingerprint database, and that means asylum seekers can come to the UK knowing they won’t automatically be thrown out because they have applied in another European country. He said:
There’s also increasing evidence of a Brexit effect [in explaining why migrants want to leave France and come to the UK]. We speak with asylum seekers now, and often they’ve claimed asylum in the EU country, sometimes been refused, but they understand that because the UK is no longer a part of the EU, and no longer party to the EU’s fingerprint database for asylum seekers, if they can get to the UK, they have another bite of the cherry and another chance to secure asylum status and remain in Europe.
There are plenty more lines in the Starmer interviews. I will post them shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The conference starts, and the main speakers are Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, at 10.30am, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, at 10.40am, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary who is winding up the conference as incoming chair of Labour’s national executive committee, at 11.15am.
11.30am: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, and Lucy Powell, the former Commons leader, take part in a deputy leadership hustings.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm BST at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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Ed Miliband to announce total ban on fracking, going beyond current moratorium
Helena Horton
Helena Horton is a Guardian environment reporter.
Ed Miliband is due to take to the stage to deliver his speech today, and he is set to announce a “total ban” on fracking.
There is currently a moratorium on the controversial energy extraction method which involves drilling deep into the earth then shooting at high speed a mixture of sand, water and chemicals to dislodge shale gas. Reform UK supports fracking across Britain, but it is unpopular as it causes earthquakes.
Miliband told the campaign group 38 Degrees:
I am about to announce something you have been calling for and campaigning on, which is to ban fracking for good. You called for it, I’m going to do it, thank you for your campaigning.
Veronica Hawking, campaigns director at 38 Degrees said:
What an amazing result for our environment, our local communities, and the thousands of committed people and groups right across the country who’ve spent years fighting for fracking to be banned for good – including the many who signed 38 Degrees supporter Geoff’s recent petition. Not long ago, it felt like fracking might make a comeback, with Reform UK pushing to put it back on the agenda. But thousands of us stood up, demanded a permanent ban, and made our voices impossible to ignore.
There is not currently a permanent ban in law, just a temporary moratorium, which was briefly lifted by Liz Truss in 2022 then reinstated by her successor Rishi Sunak.
Starmer says government will review 'interpretation' of some ECHR provisions to tackle 'Farage boats'
Keir Starmer has said he will look at how international law is being interpreted by British courts in an effort to tackle small boats, which he labelled “Farage boats” because of their increase in number since Brexit, Eleni Courea reports.
Starmer says he does not think Farage and his supporters are racist - though poll suggests 43% of voters think they are
Keir Starmer has said that he does not think Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, or his supporters are racist.
He made this point in several of the interviews being broadcast this morning, explaining that that what he is calling racist is the Reform UK migration policy announced last week that could lead to hundreds of thousands of people with indefinite leave to remain in the UK being told they must leave the country.
The single most important comment from Starmer during this party conference probably came on Sunday, on the BBC, when Laura Kuenssberg asked him if he thought the Reform UK policy was racist and Starmer said he did. This interview signalled a transformation in how Labour will fight Reform UK, which has a lead of about 10 points over Labour in the polls. Much of Starmer’s speech yesterday was just devoted to fleshing this argument out. But it has led to Labour figures repeatedly being asked about Farage potentially being racist, sometimes with embarrassing results.
In an interview with Sky News, Beth Rigby asked Starmer if he thought Farage was racist. Starmer replied:
No, nor do I think Reform voters are racist.
They’re concerned about things like our borders. They’re frustrated about the pace of change.
So I’m not for a moment suggesting that they are racist. I was talking about a particular policy and making a distinction – and a really important distinction in my mind – between deporting those who have no right to be here, illegally here, which this government is doing and I agree with, and, on the other hand, reaching into migrants lawfully here who’ve been here for years working in our hospitals, our schools, and deporting them. That to me would tear our country apart.
In other interviews, asked if he was calling people who voted Reform UK, Starmer said “not in the slightest”.
In his interview, Robert Peston, ITV News’ political editor, pointed out that, if Starmer does not think Reform UK supporters are racist, he is out of step with the plurality of voters who do. He referred to some polling by YouGov for his Peston programme that illustrates this.
Peston asked Starmer how he could call a policy racist, but not the people supporting it. Starmer just gave a version of the answer he gave to Sky, saying:
I am not calling Reform voters racist. Most of them are simply concerned and frustrated because they want to see change and are concerned that we secure our borders, as I am. That is not racist.
Starmer: Leaving EU has hampered efforts to return migrants
Good morning. Keir Starmer recorded about 10 broadcast interviews yesterday afternoon, after his conference speech, on the basis that they would all be broadcast this morning. They are playing out now. As you would expect, they are very repetitive – a lot of the questions and the answers are the same – but there are still plenty of new lines in them.
One of his most audacious answers came when he was speaking to Christopher Hope, political editor of GB News, Reform UK’s favourite TV channel. Hope asked if the government would stop the small boats, and Starmer said that the returns agreement that he negotiated with France would make a difference. But then he went on to claim that they were “Farage boats, in many senses” because after Brexit the Dublin convention returns agreement that used to be in place no longer applied.
Here is Starmer’s answer in full.
The returns agreement with France is important because we need to establish that if you come by boat, you will be returned to France.
I accept the numbers [returned so far under the agreement] are low. We had to prove the concept and prove that it could work. We’ve now done that. But now we need to ramp that up.
I would gently point out to Nigel Farage and others that before we left the EU, we had a returns agreement with every country in the EU. And he told the country it will make no difference if we left. Well, he was wrong about that. These are Farage boats, in many senses, that are coming across the channel.
Starmer does not seem to have used this line in other interviews and it is not clear yet whether this is the start of a sustained government attempt to rebrand these as “Farage boats”, or whether Starmer was just trying to wind up Hope, who often asks questions that reflect the views of his Farage-loving viewers.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, made a similar argument in his party conference speech. John Rentoul, the Independent commentator who is broadly sympathetic to Labour, said this morning Davey and Starmer were both wrong to argue that being out of the Dublin convention made much difference to small boat arrival numbers.
Surprised by PM repeating Ed Davey’s bogus analysis: boats are nothing to do with Brexit; & the Dublin convention never worked
But in fact the Dublin convention probably isn’t the key issue. Peter Walsh, a senior researcher at the Migration Observatory, a migration thinktank, argued recently that Brexit is making the small boat problem worse because the UK no longer has access to an EU fingerprint database, and that means asylum seekers can come to the UK knowing they won’t automatically be thrown out because they have applied in another European country. He said:
There’s also increasing evidence of a Brexit effect [in explaining why migrants want to leave France and come to the UK]. We speak with asylum seekers now, and often they’ve claimed asylum in the EU country, sometimes been refused, but they understand that because the UK is no longer a part of the EU, and no longer party to the EU’s fingerprint database for asylum seekers, if they can get to the UK, they have another bite of the cherry and another chance to secure asylum status and remain in Europe.
There are plenty more lines in the Starmer interviews. I will post them shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The conference starts, and the main speakers are Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, at 10.30am, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, at 10.40am, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary who is winding up the conference as incoming chair of Labour’s national executive committee, at 11.15am.
11.30am: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, and Lucy Powell, the former Commons leader, take part in a deputy leadership hustings.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm BST at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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