Nigel Farage has laid into Sir Keir Starmer after the Prime Minister unveiled his plans to crackdown on Britain’s “broken” borders.
Speaking to GB News, the Reform UK leader accused Starmer of being “insincere” and warned he was “playing catch up” on the issue of immigration.
In a twist, Farage also pointed out that Starmer’s references to “taking back control”, which the Prime Minister made five times this morning, precede the use of the slogan by Vote Leave in 2016.
He said: “I was using take back control in 2004.”
Nigel Farage lays into ‘insincere’ Keir Starmer as PM accused of copying Brexit slogan
GB News
Delivering his verdict on the measures, Farage told GB News: “They weren’t concerned before May 1st were they?
“Keir Starmer has spent his whole career campaigning for free movement of people wholly unconcerned about this subject, so much so that their massive parliamentary majority was gained without immigration even being one of their five main priorities.
“Now, of course, he knows that amongst the great British public, this issue rates even higher than the health service. And he’s just basically playing catch up with Reform.”
Highlighting Starmer’s use of language in his announcement – where he warned of Britain becoming a “nation of strangers”, Farage declared that the Labour leader would “never say that at any point of his life”.
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Farage fumed: “You wouldn’t have heard the PM say it at any point in his life. This is not the conversation of the North London dinner party set.
“Many of the things he said are the same things I’ve been saying for over 20 years, and that’s Starmer’s problem – insincerity.”
In a pointed attack on the Prime Minister, Farage asked: “What does this man actually believe in, other than trying to keep power for its own sake? This is totally insincere at every level.
“And whatever happens, there are still massive loopholes here for overseas students, and net migration is still going to run under this Labour Government at many hundreds of thousands a year. And all of this on the same day when we see hundreds of people, young men, crossing the English Channel – I would ask the Prime Minister, how confident is he?”
Farage told GB News that Starmer is ‘following Reform’ with his immigration White Paper
GB News
Comparing Starmer’s latest efforts to former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Farage claimed that Britons will “look back on this announcement” like the nation did with Sunak’s “stop the boats” slogan.
Farage told GB News: “I think we’ll look back on today a little bit like Rishi Sunak’s pledges stop the boats. Remember that?
“He didn’t stop the boats, it cost the Conservatives very, very dearly in the general election. So am I worried? I’m afraid not. If he was to succeed with all of this, I’d praise him to the heavens, but he’s not.”
The Reform leader added: “We are controlling the narrative in terms of the rhetoric. They’re following Reform on all of this, but do they have the will to drive any of this through? I very much doubt it.”