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James Cleverly: People are 'dying in the Channel' because of Labour 'incompetence'

2024-08-17 00:00:00.0 每日快报-政治原网页

The former Home Secretary wants to oust Labour and become PM (Image: Getty)

Sir Keir Starmer and his team were branded “dishonest”, “arrogant” and “callous” in a scathing assessment of Labour’s “catastrophic” first six weeks in power.

Tory leadership contender James Cleverly said people were dying in the Channel as a direct result of Labour “incompetence” and “appalling decision-making”.

The former Home Secretary said Sir Keir’s decisions sent out a “massive signal” that Britain was “softening” its border defences and this fuelled the surge in small boat crossings.

He also condemned the “callous” decision to strip nearly 10 million pensioners of their winter fuel payments, predicting Labour will face the wrath of the British electorate.

And he warned Labour risked triggering another cost of living crisis by agreeing to bumper pay increases demanded by militant unions which could refuel inflation.

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He is concerned that Britain’s tradition of “fantastic race relations” will be at risk if Labour fails to get a grip on illegal immigration.

Mr Cleverly, whose mother came from Sierra Leone, describes himself as the “byproduct of the successful integration of an earlier generation of migrants into this country”. But he warned “that success is built on a foundation stone of trust in the integrity of our immigration system”.

That confidence will be undermined, he cautioned, if “people think that those who break the rules are the ones who are successful”.

A Labour spokeswoman turned her guns on the Tory leadership candidate, saying: “ James Cleverly is trying to take the country for fools. In his period as Home Secretary, we saw the highest number of small boat crossing on record in the first six months of 2024.

“The idea the Tories’ Rwanda gimmick was deterring anyone is laughable. They had a Bill, a treaty and many photo-ops, and yet thousands came across.

“And after spending hundreds of millions, they only ever sent four volunteers to Rwanda. A Labour Government is replacing gimmicks with grip and fixing our broken borders, with a new Border Security Command to smash the criminal smuggling gangs making millions out of Channel crossings.”

A Labour source said that while 5,000 people arrived in the six weeks from July 5 to August 15 this was the lowest figure since 2020, with 7,047 making the journey in 2022.

Mr Cleverly’s anger at the Labour Government goes far beyond immigration.

He warns there is a “very real danger” of Labour plunging the country into a new cost of living crisis as a result of “inflation-busting” pay rises.

“When inflation goes up it is the poorest in society who are hit the hardest,” he said.

The Government has awarded junior doctors a 22 per cent pay increase over two years and train drivers have been offered a pay increase of nearly 15 per cent over three years.

Stating that train drivers’ union Aslef had recently donated ￡100,000 to Labour, he said: “If that happened in any other country in the world I think we would be justly horrified.”

Mr Cleverly speaks with anger about the decision to restrict winter fuel payments to pensioners who receive specific benefits.

Insisting that the Conservatives handed Labour “a really solid economic foundation”, he said: “Without notice, without justification and without a mandate from the British people, they have stripped this payment away from something like 10 million

British pensioners and that is just a choice and it’s a dishonest choice.

“I think it is not only callous but it is dishonest and I think they will be held accountable.”

Although dismayed by Labour’s first weeks in power, he has a frank assessment of how the Tories lost the support of voters.

“It was partially our conduct that enabled Labour to have such a huge majority and what they believe is a licence to act with such arrogance,” he said. “It is our duty now as a party to get our act together to make sure we hold them to account and we put forward a credible alternative at the next set of elections.”

Foiling the Far Right

THE key to halting the rise of the far Right is addressing the real concerns of people who are frightened and frustrated, according to Conservative leadership candidate James Cleverly.

He said: “People turn to far Right parties or far Right voices when they feel the other political parties are not listening to their concerns and not responding to their concerns. I think people gravitate to parties like that out of fear and frustration.

“What we need to do is we need to remove that fear and we need to respond to that frustration.”

Politicians, he argues, must listen and respond to concerns about jobs, housing, public services and the pace of social change.

He said: “If we do that, people no longer have the incentive to gravitate to extremist parties, either of the hard Left or the hard Right, who never have practical answers.”

However, he shows no sign of any interest in welcoming Reform UK leader Nigel Farage into the Tory fold in a bid to unite the parties of the Right in Westminster.

He said: “He has said he wants to destroy my party. I don’t think he wants to join the Conservative party; I don’t want to have people come into the party who seek to destroy it.”

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