Cooper supports PM on the remark of “the island of foreigners”

Interior secretary Yvette Cooper defended the language used by Sir Keir Starmer in a speech to reveal plans to reduce immigration.

The Prime Minister said on Monday that the United Kingdom risked becoming “an island of foreigners” without stricter controls.

The sentence has led certain labor deputies to accuse it of a division language – an affirmation rejected by Cooper.

She added that the PM sought to highlight the impact of the increase in migration in recent years and “support for integration”, including English tests.

She rejected a comparison made by a small number of labor deputies, notably the former Chancellor of the Shadow John McDonnell, to the language of Enoch Powell.

Downing Street also rejected the comparison and said that the PM supported its words and “the argument he made that migrants made a massive contribution to our country, but migration must be checked”.

Cooper said that she did not know if the Prime Minister or his speeches editors were aware of a similarity with a line in the Rivers of Blood Speech by Enoch Powell in 1968, in which the conservative deputy described a future in which the British “found themselves made foreigners in their own country” because of immigration.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Teday program, she added that Starmer’s speech was “completely different”, adding: “I don’t think it’s just to make these comparisons”.

“The Prime Minister said yesterday, I think that almost in the same breath, spoke of the various country that we are and to be part of our strength …

“I know that everyone is always taken in the process of focusing on different sentences and so on, but we have to talk about politicians.”

Asked about BBC Breakfast if she thought that Starmer’s language was toxic, she replied: “I don’t agree, no”, adding that the PM had “just saying that we have to change”.

London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan said he understood the “context” in which the government had announced its new migration measures, but it would not have used the expression “island of foreigners” itself.

Addressing LBC, he added: “The type of language I use is different from the language used by others. It is not the kind of words that I would use”.

The conservative secretary of ghost justice, Robert Jenrick, echoes the Prime Minister’s comments, adding Sir Keir’s warning that the United Kingdom could become an island of foreigners was “already” true in certain parts of the country.

The comparison with Powell was made by McDonnell, who lost the Whip Labor last year after having rebellious during a vote of social protection, during the question of Cooper in the municipalities on Monday.

The deputy for Hayes and Harlington said: “When the legislation of this nature is introduced which is serious and could be controversial, it is extremely important that ministers use meticulous language.

“When the Prime Minister has referred to … An island of foreigners, reflecting the language of Enoch Powell, does she realize how shocking it could be?”

In the same debate, Labor MP Nadia Whittome said that immigrants were “scapegoat for problems they had not caused” and that “rhetoric surrounding this” risked worsening racial abuses.

The deputy for Nottingham East asked: “Why are we trying to reform monkeys (United Kingdom), when this will not improve the life of our constituents and simply Stoke More Division?”

The launch of government immigration measures on Monday follows the local elections in England earlier this month which saw the plowing lose the siege Runcorn and Helsby to the Nigel Farage reform in the United Kingdom in a historically close election.

The reform, which has greatly campaigned on the issue of immigration in recent years, has also taken its first two metro mayors and now controls 10 county tips, which questions the domination of work and conservatives.

Also speaking on the TODAY program, Jenrick, who was Minister of Immigration of 2022-2023, said that the public was “sick with rhetoric, they wanted action”.

Jenrick said that the conservative inability to reduce net migration over 14 years in power was due to “catastrophic errors” and said that work plans were a “Keir Starmer idiot to encourage the British public to believe that he was going to take measures”.

He added the words of Sir Keir “all repudiated” which he had previously defended, claiming that the Prime Minister had defended the Labor Directorate in 2020 on a policy of “supporting mass migration”.