'This happened by design': Starmer blames Tories for 'open borders' after migration high

Sir Keir Starmer has accused the Tories of utilizing Brexit to deliberately tally an "open borders experiment" successful the UK.

The premier curate said the British radical are "owed an explanation" aft revised figures showed nett migration reached a grounds precocious of astir 1 cardinal nether the erstwhile government's watch.

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Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows nett migration for the twelvemonth to June 2023 reached 906,000 - a large leap connected what was antecedently thought and 4 times higher than pre-Brexit figures successful 2019.

In a code from Downing Street, Sir Keir said: "Failure connected this standard isn't conscionable atrocious luck. It isn't a planetary inclination oregon taking your oculus disconnected the ball. No, this is simply a antithetic bid of failure. This happened by design, not accident.

"Policies were formed deliberately to liberalise immigration. Brexit was utilized for that intent - to crook Britain into a 1 federation experimentation successful unfastened borders."

The ONS's erstwhile estimation for the twelvemonth to 2023 was 740,000, which astatine the clip was inactive a grounds amount.

New stats amusement nett migration - the quality betwixt radical coming to unrecorded successful and leaving the UK - is down 20% this twelvemonth from the revised precocious of 2023.

Tory person Kemi Badenoch yesterday admitted her enactment had made mistakes with immigration.

But Sir Keir said their "Global Britain" argumentation had "no support... and present they privation to question it distant with a elemental 'we got it wrong'."

"Well, that's unforgivable," helium added.

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