Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Labour under friendly fire over migration and asylum policy
The paper says that the group, in a joint statement, singled out the Home Office’s decision, revealed last week, to refuse citizenship to anyone who arrives in the UK via “a dangerous journey” such as a small boat over the Channel:
The statement also criticised ministers for highlighting the number of people being deported from the UK, with a Home Office publicity blitz last week using footage and images showing people being removed on planes.
The statement, coordinated by the Labour Campaign for Free Movement and the left-leaning Labour group Momentum, has been signed by seven MPs – Nadia Whittome, Diane Abbott, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Clive Lewis, Jon Trickett, Brian Leishman and Steve Witherden – as well as four ex-Labour MPs who now sit as independents, and four of the party’s peers.
It read: “Last week the government has published videos of deportations, restated its intention to criminalise people arriving irregularly, and banned them from ever becoming British citizens.
“These measures mimic the performative cruelty of the failed Tory governments rejected by voters last July. They also breach Britain’s international obligations to respect the right to claim asylum and guarantee safe routes.
“Far from being a drain on this country, migrants from all over the world enrich our society in every sense. Anti-migrant politics will not build a single house, staff a single hospital or raise anyone’s wages. Instead, by echoing its rhetoric, the government is simply fuelling the rise of Reform UK.
“We urge Labour’s leaders to recognise that Labour’s only route to victory is to deliver for the vast majority of people. We need to reverse austerity, address the climate crisis, take on the water and energy companies ripping us off, and foster a politics of working-class solidarity.”
Ministers have faced previous warnings from within the party and its backers that attempts to try to limit the threat from Reform by talking and acting toughly on migration could backfire.
This month Labour launched a series of adverts with Reform-style branding and messaging about how many people the government had deported, including a series from a group called UK Migration Updates.
On Sunday, Christina McAnea, the general secretary of Unison, and nine Church of England bishops were among 148 signatories of a letter saying that the plan to deprive almost all asylum seekers of citizenship would “breed division and distrust” and could fuel attacks on migrant hotels.
The letter asked Cooper to “urgently reconsider the decision to effectively ban tens of thousands of refugees from ever becoming British citizens”.
The brothers and sisters are starting to get restless.
Monday, February 17, 2025
The doubting Tories
The paper says that some MPs are complaining that their fledgling leader is raising the wrong topics and picking unconvincing lines of attack against the prime minister at PMQs, which is her most prominent opportunity to make the political weather, while others have been concerned about the level of support for her from colleagues during the exchanges:
While most MPs are sympathetic to Badenoch, who is less than four months into the job, some MPs and frontbenchers want to see her bolster her advisory team with Tory figures seasoned in the difficult task of landing political blows.
One former cabinet minister said there had been complaints among MPs that Badenoch kept avoiding obvious attacks on Starmer’s handling of the economy, instead opting for “Westminster village-orientated” topics that she persevered with for too long. “People are putting on a brave face at the moment, but the comment I’ve heard more often than any other is that she keeps picking the wrong subjects,” they said. “There are some big things going on that could really resonate – like the economy.”
An MP who shared the concerns said: “We have people who have been involved in PMQs prep for a long time and I hope she’s got some continuity there, because it’s important we get it right. It doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll be perfect, but she needs experience behind her. You need wise heads who know what they’re doing.”
The discontent surfaced after this week’s outing, in which Badenoch confronted Starmer over an attempt by a family from Gaza to use a Ukrainian resettlement scheme to come to the UK, as well as the appointment of a new borders inspector who lives in Finland.
However, Starmer responded by stating that the government was already reviewing the findings of the case of the Gazan family, while the borders inspector had been appointed by the last government – and had now been instructed to work from the UK.
Sympathetic Tory MPs said that the complaints over Badenoch’s approach were simply evidence of how hard it was to make an impression as opposition leader and pleaded for colleagues to give her time. “No one’s going to be a rock star immediately,” said one frontbencher. “It’s going to be incredibly difficult and she’s got to grow into the job. If it does seem clunky, she’s got four years to get this right. Having said that, Starmer is unbelievably crap.”
The paper adds that Tory figures are concerned about what could happen should the Conservatives suffer a poor set of local elections in May, as expected, with MPs saying that any discussion about replacing another leader would make them look absurd and must be avoided.
All in all. it's a right mess they've got themselves into.
Sunday, February 16, 2025
The prince is no pauper
They says that Labour peer George Foulkes has had the first of what he intends to be a number of questions about Andrew accepted, after “helpful” discussions last week with the deputy speaker in the House of Lords, John Gardiner.
The paper adds that these talks came after Lord Foulkes said recently that he had been refused permission to table a question proposing a public register of royal interests. He has called for greater scrutiny of the royals, including in parliament:
Parliament’s standing orders and Erskine May, the “bible” of procedure, prevent scrutiny at Westminster of the conduct of members of the royal family. Erskine May states: “No question can be put which brings the name of the sovereign or the influence of the crown directly before parliament, or which casts reflections upon the sovereign or the royal family.”
George Foulkes plans to ask further questions about the use of taxpayers’ money by the monarchy. Photograph: Patrick Seeger/EPA Foulkes, 83, has argued that there should be changes to the rules to allow parliament to go beyond the current limit of questions, mainly about the cost to the taxpayer of royal residences and events attended by the royals, particularly in the light of continuing concerns over the conduct of Andrew. Lord Gardiner does not appear to have gone that far but has helped Foulkes navigate the restrictions, which also include the requirement that parliamentary questions should relate to matters of government responsibility.
Foulkes has asked ministers to publish details of any briefings provided to the Duke of York by the Ministry of Defence after he left the Royal Navy and during his tenure as the UK’s special representative for international trade and investment from 2001 until 2011. Foulkes has asked for details on the nature of the briefings, when they ceased and the reasons for their continuation post-service.
“There are some suggestions he may have had sensitive briefings and then used the information while talking to other people,” Foulkes said.
He has also tabled a question asking the government to publish annual figures for the cost of royal security and plans further questions about the use of taxpayers’ money by the royal family.
Foulkes, who is awaiting written replies from ministers, said there has been less scrutiny and debate in parliament about the cost of the royals since the civil list was replaced in 2012 by the sovereign grant, which is automatically benchmarked to the equivalent of 12% of the profits of the crown estate, an independent business that hands all its profits to the Treasury.
In the Commons, there has been no opportunity for MPs to discuss concerns about the duke’s activities. MPs have proved unable or unwilling to circumvent Erskine May, and the Commons public accounts committee chaired by the Conservative MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has not made investigating the duke’s taxpayer-funded activities a priority.
This is a welcome development, but it doesnt go far enough. The medieval rules about not being able to scrutinise the way the royal family spends the £86m a year of public money it receives or how it uses its influence to affect legislation and policy are not fit for purpose in twenty first century Britain.
It is time that the rules were swept aside so that MPs can scrutinise the royal family in the same way as they scrutinise other aspects of government.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Labour are failing business
The paper says that in the wake of Rachel Reeves’ national insurance hike on employers, the inheritance tax raid on farmers and other reforms, Campbell said that of 300 business people at a recent event, the overwhelming majority told him Labour was performing “worse than expected”, and he warned that one of the major reasons was “disappointment on the much vaunted “reset” with Europe”:
In his lecture to Labour Movement for Europe he also hit out at Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, saying facts were the way to take on the Brexiteers’ arguments, as he extolled the Independent’s recent front page setting out the true cost of Brexit.
In his speech, he said: “That Labour needs to win over the business community, or perhaps that should be “re-win over”, is not in doubt.
“I did an event last week, 300 business people, and asked them, on a show of hands, whether the Labour government was A) performing as expected; B) better than expected, or C) worse than expected … my exercise had zero hands raised for “better than expected”, around 20 per cent “as expected” but an overwhelming majority “worse than expected.”
He also warned Labour that it has to “stop debating Brexit on your opponents’ terms”.
The party should “stop being so defensive about spelling out the facts, the scale of the disaster that the Brexit deal inflicted on us,” he said.
Labour politicians also had to “stop treating Nigel Farage like some exotic celebrity who manages to play the media like a fiddle… treat him like a politician, take apart his arguments, expose his record, show that beneath the bonhomie and the bluster is an agenda that would take this country in a dark and dangerous direction.”
He also urged the group to “memorise (and) never tire of using” the facts of Brexit set out by The Independent on the fifth anniversary of Brexit.
He told them that these included “the £30bn divorce settlement; the 15 per cent long term hit on trade, as assessed by the Office for Budget Responsibility; the £27bn drop in exports attributed to new Brexit trade barriers; the 118,000 tonnes fall in seafood exports since 2019; the 16,400 businesses, some of whom may well have bought the idea Brexit would mean less not more red tape, which have just given up on exporting to the EU because of the bureaucracy… and – remember “take back control” – the 2.3million net migration into the UK since EU free movement ended.”
The Brexit deal to leave the EU was now something that “only (Boris) Johnson and (ex-Brexit secretary Lord) Frost are left defending”, he said.
If Rachel Reeves doesn't have business on board and if the government don't sort out our relations with Europe then her ambitions for growth may well turn out to be just another pipedream.
Friday, February 14, 2025
Reeves under pressure
The paper says that the BBC has alleged that before entering parliament, the chancellor was one of three employees investigated by Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) for using her expenses to "fund a lifestyle" with inappropriate spending on dinners, events, taxis and gifts.
The broadcaster uncovered documents it said showed Ms Reeves was accused of spending hundreds of pounds on the items, including one gift for her boss. Concerns were reportedly raised about her spending on taxis and on a Christmas party, with one whistleblower believing it to be excessive, the BBC said.
A former colleague told the BBC Ms Reeves was among senior managers who had “a very cavalier attitude regarding the budget in the department,” and cited a leaving meal for a colleague costing more than £400 for which Ms Reeves used a company spending card.
The BBC investigation also found Ms Reeves stopped working for the Bank of England nine months earlier than it stated on her LinkedIn profile.
The reports are a major embarrassment and are likely to lead to more questions over whether she can continue as chancellor, as the economy struggles under the impact of her Budget.
But Reeves’ spokesman said she did not recall being investigated by HBOS or facing questions over her expenses.
Sir Keir Starmer backed Ms Reeves, and his official spokesman said the prime minister he has no concerns about her conduct.
But Labour grandee Siobhain McDonagh, said there are “questions to be asked” even as she described the chancellor as “one of the most hardworking, honest politicians that I have ever met”.
She said: “We’ve got to be sure about what happened with the expenses scandal. As far as I’m aware she absolutely denies that she was approached by anybody about the expenses scandal. So I think there’s still questions to be asked about what is going on and we’ll see what happens.”
Labour are discovering how difficult it is to stick to their agenda when stories like tis emerge.
Thursday, February 13, 2025
The nasty party?
The Guardian reports that the Home Office has been accused of quietly blocking thousands of refugees from applying for citizenship if they arrived in the UK by small boats or hidden in vehicles.
The paper says that guidance for staff assessing people who have applied for naturalisation says that, since Monday, applicants who have “made a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship”:
The Refugee Council said that the move will potentially bar 71,000 people who have successfully applied for asylum from claiming UK citizenship. A leading immigration barrister has claimed that it is a breach of international law.
The development will be seen as the latest evidence that Keir Starmer’s government has adopted a hardline “hostile environment” stance on asylum to fight off a poll surge by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Senior Tories claim that the government’s new border security bill, which passed its second reading on Monday, will repeal parts of the Illegal Migration Act, which would stop irregular arrivals from becoming British citizens.
One Labour MP has joined charities in calling for the government to reverse the guidance with immediate effect.
Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, wrote on X: “This should be changed asap. If we give someone refugee status, it can’t be right to then refuse them [a] route to become a British citizen.”
The changes, first disclosed by the Free Movement blog, were introduced to guidance for visa and immigration staff on Monday.
Described as a “clarification” to case worker guidance when assessing if a claimant is of “good character’, it says: “Any person applying for citizenship from 10 February 2025, who previously entered the UK illegally will normally be refused, regardless of the time that has passed since the illegal entry took place.”
In another new entry to the same guidance, it says: “A person who applies for citizenship from 10 February 2025 who has previously arrived without a required valid entry clearance or electronic travel authorisation, having made a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship.
“A dangerous journey includes, but is not limited to, travelling by small boat or concealed in a vehicle or other conveyance.”
Most people who enter the UK on small boats are eventually granted refugee status. A majority of those granted refugee status eventually claim British citizenship. Seeking UK citizenship costs £1,630 an application, and there is no right of appeal against a refusal.
Colin Yeo, an immigration barrister and editor of the blog, wrote on Bluesky: “This is bad, full stop. It creates a class of person who are forever excluded from civic life no matter how long they live here. It’s also a clear breach of the refugee convention.”
Article 31 of the UN refugee convention says: “The contracting states shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees.”
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the move “flies in the face of reason. The British public want refugees who have been given safety in our country to integrate into and contribute to their new communities.
“So many refugees over many generations have become proud hard-working British citizens as doctors, entrepreneurs and other professionals. Becoming a British citizen has helped them give back to their communities and this should be celebrated, not prevented.”
These changes go even further than the conservatives ever did, and leave the Labour Party open to charges that they are the new nasty party.
As this article in the Independent says even one of Nigel Farage’s long-term and loyal allies, Gawain Towler, has expressed shock at the way Labour are managing immigration and has suggested that Keir Starmer’s party is being “nasty” by publishing videos of migrant raids.
The paper says that Towler is not alone in calling out the nastiness, adding that 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”:
Labour MPs are publicly and privately pleased that some of the more egregious Tory policies, like Rwanda deportations and detention of children, have been dropped by this government.
But that is as far as it goes.
Privately a number of them are complaining that the government under Starmer is “deeply unlikable” and “behaving too much like Reform-lite”.
One new MP even said: “We look like the nasty party now.”
This is playing badly in the polls and in core areas like Scotland and Wales.
Diane Abbott, writing over the weekend for The Independent, is one of the few to publicly say Labour is becoming Reform-lite, but others are privately pondering whether there may need to be a change of leader sometime.
Whether these tactics will impact on Reform's support has to be seen, but it appears that Labour has decided that selling its soul is part of the solution to its current problems with the polls.
The paper says that Towler is not alone in calling out the nastiness, adding that 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”:
Labour MPs are publicly and privately pleased that some of the more egregious Tory policies, like Rwanda deportations and detention of children, have been dropped by this government.
But that is as far as it goes.
Privately a number of them are complaining that the government under Starmer is “deeply unlikable” and “behaving too much like Reform-lite”.
One new MP even said: “We look like the nasty party now.”
This is playing badly in the polls and in core areas like Scotland and Wales.
Diane Abbott, writing over the weekend for The Independent, is one of the few to publicly say Labour is becoming Reform-lite, but others are privately pondering whether there may need to be a change of leader sometime.
Whether these tactics will impact on Reform's support has to be seen, but it appears that Labour has decided that selling its soul is part of the solution to its current problems with the polls.
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
The hidden scandals
I suppose it is because WhatsApp provides a supposedly secure and private forum that MPs and other politicians use it for confidential chats. The danger is when they get careless and believe that they can let rip with what they really think, believing that their views will never see the light of day, only to discover their error when the conversation adorns the headlines of every major newspaper.
At least two Labour MPs and quite a few Labour councillors are no doubt regretting doing just that this morning. The Independent reports that eleven Labour councillors have now been suspended from the party over their membership of a WhatsApp group that has already seen two MPs lose the whip.
The paper records that former health minister Andrew Gwynne was sacked over the weekend for offensive messages sent in the group, named Trigger Me Timbers, while on Monday, Oliver Ryan, who was elected as MP for Burnley last summer, became the second MP to have the whip withdrawn over his involvement in the group:
Now, almost a dozen more Labour members – including Mr Gwynne’s wife – are understood to have been suspended.
Other councillors who were administratively suspended on Tuesday are understood to include former council leader Brenda Warrington, and Claire Reid, a member of Labour’s national policy forum.
The group’s members come from Tameside and Stockport councils.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “As part of our WhatsApp group investigation, a group of councillors have been administratively suspended from the Labour Party.
“As soon as this group was brought to our attention, a thorough investigation was launched in line with the Labour Party’s rules and procedures and this process is ongoing. Swift action will always be taken where individuals are found to have breached the high standards expected of them as Labour Party members.”
Mr Gwynne left government and was suspended from Labour at the weekend after reports he had sent messages to the group including a joke about a constituent being “mown down” by a truck.
He also said hoped a 72-year-old woman would soon die after she asked a councillor about bin collections.
The MP for Gorton and Denton in Greater Manchester said he deeply regretted his “badly misjudged comments” and apologised for “any offence caused” in a statement.
Sir Keir Starmer dismissed him as a minister as soon as he became aware of the comments, it is understood.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reported that Mr Ryan appeared to mock a fellow Labour MP over his sexuality in exchanges in the group.
The newspaper does not name the MP being mocked in the group and notes he has never discussed his sexuality publicly and is not publicly known to be gay.
Mr Ryan is also said to have used an offensive nickname to refer to local Labour leader Colin Bailey.
It is not a good look for a party that professes to be socially liberal and tolerant of all beliefs.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
The Labour MPs under fire over the tractor tax
They say that on Monday, hundreds of protesting farmers blocked Whitehall before MPs entered Parliament to debate the petition:
Under the chancellor’s plan, a 20 per cent inheritance tax rate will be introduced on farms worth more than £1 million from April 2026. But it has sparked a furious backlash in farming communities and created a problem for many newly-elected Labour MPs in rural constituencies.
Analysis of the signatories of a petition, called ‘Don’t change inheritance tax relief for working farms’ and signed by 150,000 people, shows the Labour-held seats with the highest number of constituents signing it.
It comes as Save British Farming and the Countryside Alliance urge MPs to act on the issue or face losing their seat at the next election.
The Labour seat with the highest number of petition signatures (768) was Penrith and Solway, held by Markus Campbell-Savours.
Mr Campbell-Savours, who has more farms in his constituency than any other Labour MP, voiced reservations on the policy in a speech in the Commons last year.
More recently, the MP, who won his seat last year with a 5,300 majority, organised a survey of farmers over concerns he had heard on the viability of family farms and supply chains in Cumbria as a result of the plan.
He did not respond in time to The Independent for comment.
The Labour seat with the second highest number of signatures (686) was Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, where MP Steve Witherden became the first Labour representative to express doubts about the proposal last year.
Third was the Derbyshire Dales, where MP John Whitby won the seat with a majority of just 350. A total of 666 people have signed the petition in his constituency. In Mr Whitby’s maiden speech in October, he pledged to stand up for the farming community in the Dales.
MP David Smith’s constituency of North Northumberland and MP Anna Gelderd’s of South East Cornwall had 599 and 576 people signing the petition respectively.
Of the Labour MPs to win on the tightest majorities, MP Sam Carling’s constituency of North West Cambridgeshire had 294 signatures. Mr Carling won with a majority of just 39. In the Forest of Dean, 400 people signed the petition where MP Matt Bishop won with a majority of 278.
Labour MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, whose constituency Suffolk Coastal had 325 people sign the petition, told The Independent she had passed on farmers’ concerns to the Treasury.
She added: “But at the heart of the challenges facing our farming industry is that of profitability. Without profitability, farmers cannot sustain their businesses or plan for the future. This isn’t to take away the real concerns that farmers have about the Agricultural Property Relief, but it has exposed a real and fundamental problem facing the farming industry.”
Ms Riddell-Carpenter is one of 46 Labour MPs who has signed an open letter to six major supermarkets calling for a better deal for farmers.
This is one that will be worth watching.
Monday, February 10, 2025
Could there be a Trump-style coup in the UK?
He says that there are two theories of British exceptionalism which we tell to reassure ourselves that this could never happen, one is the Good Chap Theory while the other is the Cable Street warm bath:
The Good Chap Theory was coined by Professor Peter Hennessy, himself the ultimate good chap, who has spent his life writing about how power is wielded in a country which has (unlike the US) no written constitution—nothing on paper—but which nonetheless muddles through. So taken with this notion is he that he called his collection of essays on the subject Muddling Through.
The Good Chap Theory is the idea that the letter of the rules is less important than the system being run by players who understand their spirit. It was a theory which sort of muddled through until tested to breaking point by Boris Johnson (aided by his sidekick Dominic Cummings) and then by Liz Truss, who got muddled and was rather quickly dispensed with.
The Cable Street warm bath is the one that basks in the fundamental moderation and decency of the British people. In the mid-30s, when fascism was on the rise throughout Europe, we Brits wanted nothing to do with it. Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts may have marched through Stepney in 1936—but they were met with honest working-class folk who gave them a thrashing.
Put these two fables together and we can amuse ourselves with the wild melodrama currently playing out in Washington DC and comfort ourselves that, to borrow the title of Sinclair Lewis’s 1936 dystopian novel, “it can’t happen here”.
Rusbridger is not so sure that these models work anymore:
You can be reasonably sure that there are a bunch of bright twenty-somethings in Tufton Street—the HQ of shadowy well-funded right-wing thinktanks—watching every move in Maga-land and plotting exactly how they could transplant it.
We know Elon Musk has developed a keen interest in British politics and might gladly fund Nigel Farage/Richard Tice/Tommy Robinson (delete as appropriate) to have a go at wreaking the same kind of chaos in London as he has in Washington. Blow the whole thing up and start again.
Or you could read the lip-smacking X posts of the British Right’s philosopher-in-chief, Matthew Goodwin, in the hour of Trump’s inauguration. He asked his followers to imagine Day 1 of an equivalent regime in the UK: “A national border emergency is declared; the military is sent to stop the boats; all constraints on North Sea gas and oil are removed; shut down woke ideology; immediately end DEI; establish a new department of government efficiency”. Sound familiar?
How hard would it be?
Coups generally start with capturing the media. Quite a large chunk of ours wouldn’t need much capturing: they’re practically there already. The BBC wouldn’t be a hard nut to crack. Sack the chair (there’s precedent) and get them to sack the director general (ditto). Abolish the licence fee and say the organisation must in future stand on its own two feet. They’d soon fall into line.
You’d need your own version of Fox News: welcome GB News! Do we still need Ofcom to regulate fairness and impartiality? Thought not.
But don’t stop there. Ask every regulator to resign and replace them with loyalists. This would require dealing with the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Happily this office, set up by the Nolan Committee to straighten out public life in 1995, has never been on a statutory footing. So abolishing it would be the work of a moment—done by an Order in Council.
He says that if this supremo has a comfortable majority in House of Commons and that MPs were as loyal/intimidated as Maga representatives seem to be, there would be little problem with parliament nodding anything through. Acts would be paased as skeletons with all the detail subject to secondary legislation and orders in council, while the House of Lords, troublesome civil servants and even stubborn judges could be removed by one way or another.
Without a written constitition, a determined Prime Minister with unquestioning support in the House of Commons could effectively write his own. It is not a pleasant prospect.
Sunday, February 09, 2025
Labour giving Farage credibility by copycat adverts
The paper says that instead the ads use the turquoise blue - and the straight-edged font - of Reform UK:
One Facebook page set up under Reform UK's colours is the UK Migration Updates, which is run for by the Yorkshire and Humber Labour party. It posts stories and updates celebrating Labour's deportation figures. The account appears to have become active at the start of January.
And a Reform UK-style attack ad has been posted on a Facebook page called Putting Runcorn First, which is run by Labour North West. It has a banner at the top reading "breaking news", with a caption saying: "Labour hits five-year high in migrant removals. Labour government removes a record 16,400 illegal migrants since taking power including 2,580 foreign criminals."
It is not a new tactic for Labour to tailor its campaigning material depending on the region, demographic or subject matter of the ad. Similarly it is not unknown for other parties to use Labour's signature red in attack ads against the party. But it is the first time the use of Reform UK's colour as a deliberate choice has been so explicitly noticed, illustrating Labour's shift in starting to take Mr Farage's party more seriously.
Such targeted advertising is being rolled out in areas where Reform UK could pose a threat, such as constituencies where the party came in second place to Labour at the general election. It comes after Reform UK topped the UK's polls for the first time earlier this week. Elsewhere in the country Labour has used targeted ads to challenge the Tories or the Green party.
Some social media users did not look favourably on the tactics. Commenting on a post the UK Migration Updates, Facebook user Nicholas Graham said: "This page is absolutely disgraceful in branding values and message. If the Labour Party really has no higher ambition than to be mistaken for the witless rabble of Reform, you have thrown away whatever moral compass you may once have had."
Another user Anna Hubbard: "Appalling. You can't out Reform Reform. Stop pandering."
This really is scraping the barrel by Labour.
