Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer has promised a “new partnership” with business and said his government would take a “pragmatic” approach to economic migration.
But in a speech to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference on Tuesday he urged companies to wean themselves off low-paid, cheap overseas labour.
Starmer—who was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2020 after it suffered a landslide defeat under his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn at the December 2019 general election—said he accepted that British businesses still needed to rely on overseas workers to fill skills gaps, but he said he would expect that in the longer term they would employ British people.
He said: “Of course we will be pragmatic. Of course we understand that we need to act now so that we help business and drive growth. But we have to address and run towards the challenge that is skills, run towards the challenge that is ensuring we have everybody back in the workforce, because there are hundreds of thousands of people who aren’t working now who were working just a few years ago.”
Starmer said he felt it was an “economic argument” rather than “political tactics.”
He told the CBI, “Our common goal must be to help the British economy off its immigration dependency.”
Starmer said he would reject any “arbitrary” immigration targets.
Labour has benefited from the political chaos of the last four months, with Boris Johnson resigning as prime minister in July, only for his successor Liz Truss to quit 49 days after taking over.
Starmer said if his party won the next general election—which might not be held until January 2025—its priority would have to be to restore Britain’s political stability and economic credibility.
He said some “good Labour things” would have to be shelved in order to concentrate on the economy and balancing the books.
Starmer Says He Turned Labour Party ‘Inside Out’
Starmer told his audience he had turned the Labour Party “inside out” since taking over from Corbyn.He later had his party membership restored but was told he would not be given the whip back and he remains an independent MP, who is expected to face a Labour challenge for his Islington North seat.
Starmer said, “This is a different Labour Party and there is no going back, we are ready for partnership.”
He said Labour would be “not just a pro-business party, but a party that is proud of being pro-business, that respects the contribution profit makes to our jobs, growth, and our tax base.”
Starmer said it would be a party “that gets that working people want success as well as support, understands that backing private enterprise is the only way that Britain pays its way in the world.”
He said: “We will inherit an economy that’s been damaged by the last 12 weeks and the last 12 years, and we need to fundamentally accept that as an incoming government.
“Restoring stability is key. There’s a cost to instability and we have been paying that cost over the last few weeks and over the last few years,” he added.
“That stability has to be our first priority. If that means there are things—good Labour things—which we can’t do as quickly as we would like, then that is a consequence of that security,” Starmer added.
In that speech he said Labour was “once again the political wing of the British people,” echoing a speech Blair made shortly before the 1997 election.
A Conservative Party spokesman told PA: “Keir Starmer talks tough on immigration, but all his ‘policy’ amounts to is giving big business all the cheap, low-skilled foreign labour it asks for. Labour wouldn’t lift a finger to support our domestic workforce to fill vacancies.
“He is a dyed-in-the-wool open borders advocate who wants to give illegal migrants priority access to work permits and whose shadow home secretary won’t even say if she wants to see numbers fall,” he added.
