Keir Starmer vows not to ‘chop legs off’ business by halting migrant workers

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Sir Keir Starmer has told business he is not going to “chop your legs off” by immediately stopping the flow of migrant workers into key sectors, though the prime minister said he was determined to stop the reliance on imported labour.

Speaking ahead of the final day of the Labour conference in Liverpool, Starmer said he wanted to work with business to train more workers in the UK to fill skills shortages, while he said he also expects the long-term sick to seek a return to work.

Starmer told the BBC Today programme he had a clear message for business: “I’m not going to chop your legs off by saying you can’t have the workers you need now if you need people to work on a construction site now, or next week, or to work in the care sector.”

He added: “I’m not going to be anti-business and say ‘right that’s it I’m afraid you’re going to fall over’. But I’m not going to tolerate this year after year after year. We have to work on this together.”

Starmer said he was “very struck” that there had been an increase in the number of visa applications by people with skills where apprenticeship starts had gone down in the UK.

He said he would work with business over the coming years. “I want to see a skills strategy to make sure we are less reliant on migration and have the skills we need in this country,” he said.

In relation to long-term sickness, he said: “Of course people need to look for work.” He said the government would help people back into the workplace, but added: “I think the basic proposition that you should look for work is right.”

Starmer gave the interview before flying to New York for the UN General Assembly and ahead of the last day of the Labour conference, where the party’s leadership is braced for a possible defeat in a vote on the controversial plan to remove winter fuel payments from 10mn pensioners.

The prime minister told reporters en route to New York that responsibility for the summer riots “lies with the thugs who were carrying out that disorder”, dismissing suggestions by one of his minister’s that Donald Trump had emboldened racists.

Earlier on Tuesday, a Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle, said that the Republican presidential candidate had made “toxic anti-immigration” rhetoric mainstream in western nations. She also argued right-wing Conservatives had fuelled “overt racism on our streets”.

Eagle said, at a Labour party fringe meeting, in remarks first reported by the Guardian, that it was difficult for new immigrants to “rise above the constant drumbeat of toxic anti-immigration, anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become emboldened, not only in Britain but across the western countries”. 

She added: “I mean, Trump does the same . . . it’s astonishing, quite the level of vitriol that it has created.”

Asked if he agreed with her criticism of Trump, Starmer told reporters: “I think I’ve been absolutely clear where responsibility lies for the disorder on our streets. It lies with the thugs who were carrying out that disorder.”

Starmer also said it would be “very good to meet” both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in the US this week, his third visit to the country since being elected.

The prime minister was the first world leader to speak with Trump after an assassination attempt in July, but has yet to meet Harris.