Lisa Nandy: We must be honest about immigration

LABOUR'S Lisa Nandy, who has resigned from the shadow cabinet, spoke to the Yorkshire Post on Friday about the immigration challenge facing the party just four days ago.

The shadow energy secretary said immigration which has dogged the Labour Party’s referendum campaign needs a sharp focus, she said, however to make promises on reducing EU immigration would be wrong.

Differing from Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson who has previously said EU immigration rules may have to be revisited, Ms Nandy said it was not right to solely focus on EU migration when people come to live in Britain from all over the world.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

She said: “We do need to be honest where immigration has had an impact on people’s lives and where it has had an impact that has been damaging to them.

“We have to think very seriously about how we respond to and manage immigration to make sure that we don’t for example allow employers to undercut people’s wages by using or abusing cheap immigrant labour.

When asked if Labour needs a policy that reduces the number of EU migrants, she said: “The key challenge is to have a policy that speaks to the real causes of the concerns that people have. We need to be honest about where immigration has had an impact and we need to be out in the public explaining why we should have strong labour protections.

“We should also have to call out immigration or the European Union being blamed for problems that have nothing to do with them.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“The bulk of immigration to this country actually comes from outside the EU so to suggest somehow that all the problems that people have been raising are caused by immigration from inside the EU is just not honest.

“To make promises about reducing immigration from within the EU that won’t solve people’s actual problems will not take us very far as a country.”