Labour fights back against Farage with migration push

David Lammy has ordered Foreign Office officials to ensure that tackling the migration crisis is on the agenda for every international summit and meeting, The Independent has learnt.

- DAVID MADDOX, KATE DEVLIN

His intervention comes as the government prepares to unveil its long-awaited white paper on migration policy as Labour attempts to tackle the growing threat posed by Nigel Farage and Reform.

Immigration, both legal and illegal, featured heavily in the recent local elections, where Reform won 10 councils, almost 700 seats and took Runcorn and Helsby off Labour in the byelection. Polling by Techne UK for The Independent this week also put Reform up three points to their highest level of 28 per cent, while Labour was down to two to 23 per cent.

While Mr Lammy is taking a lead on illegal, “irregular migration”, the white paper will try to bring legal migration numbers under control by focusing on ensuring UK employers have a British-first recruitment and training policy instead of relying on foreign labour.

The crisis of illegal migration was laid bare by the recent revelation that more than 10,000 have crossed the English Channel from France this year. In 2024, that figure was reached around a month later.

Now, Mr Lammy wants the UK to use its leadership role in this area to get international partners to all up their efforts to tackle the ongoing crisis. The foreign secretary told The Independent: “We need to normalise tackling irregular migration as a critical foreign policy issue by bringing it up the international agenda at every possible opportunity.

“This is an issue that has no respect for borders and requires a truly coordinated international response – as part of our Plan for Change, we are ensuring governments across the world see this as a default priority issue.”