Why Labour’s immigration policies leave a nasty taste

When one of Nigel Farage's long-term and loyal allies suggests that Keir Starmer's party is being "nasty" by publishing videos of migrant raids, alarm bells should be ringing in Labour HQ.

- DAVID MADDOX

Gawain Towler has carefully nurtured the messaging around Farage’s inflammatory, hardline, anti-migrant rhetoric for many years through Ukip, the Brexit Party and until recently with Reform. And yet even he was horrified by what he saw from Labour this week.

That was before the home secretary announced that asylum seekers on small boats would not be allowed UK citizenship in almost any circumstances. As Labour MP Stella Creasy noted, that meant even Paddington Bear would be denied.

Towler is not alone in calling out the nastiness. Even before this new wave of anti-migrant policies was properly unleashed in November Labour peer Ann Mallalieu was warning Starmer that he was turning them into the “nasty party”.

The “nasty party” phrase was infamously coined by Theresa May in 2002, when she was assessing why the Conservatives had lost the previous two elections so badly. Nobody liked the Conservatives then, but it seems that Starmer’s Labour government risks becoming equally unlikable.

Labour MPs are getting worried