Immigration visa changes the 'lowest point' of Labour's tenure, ex-Scottish leader says

Sir Keir Starmer’s speech on immigration represented the “lowest point” of the party’s tenure in government, a former Scottish leader has claimed.

Kezia Dugdale, who led Scottish Labour from 2015-2017, claimed the changes were at odds with Sir Keir’s leadership pitch in 2020, and who she believed him to be as a person.

The Labour leader has faced an extensive backlash over the plans, which are expected to reduce the number of people coming to the UK by up to 100,000 per year. The proposals include reforming work and study visas and requiring a higher level of English across all immigration routes.

The UK government has announced a crackdown on immigration rules

Appearing on Times Radio on Tuesday, Ms Dugdale said: "I am wholly depressed this morning and pretty angry as well and I think this might be for me the lowest point in Labour's tenure in government today

"I much preferred Keir Starmer of 2020 who was pro-immigration and said that a Labour government on his watch would always make the positive case for it. We're miles and miles from that now.

“The second thing is that even if you accept, and I don't, that there is a fundamental problem with having hundreds of thousands of migrants contributing to the economy in this country as they do, the impact of these particular policies in key areas is going to be devastating.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer holds a press conference on immigration at Downing Street (Picture: Ian Vogler - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

“Thirdly this makes immigration integration harder. If you make it more volatile and harder for people to settle and make a life here, that's how you provoke division within communities.

“It does the opposite of what the politicians are intending to do here. So I find the whole thing pretty dismal and I wish we could dial the clock back to 2020 and have a Labour government that was prepared to make the argument for what I believe most people in this country want, which is a positive case for immigration and the benefits it brings to economy and society.”

Asked which of those versions of Sir Keir is the “real one”, the former Lothian MP replied she hoped it was the 2020 version.

She said: “I don't understand how somebody who's had the career that he has, the upbringing that he's had, the contribution that he's made to the public life of this country before entering politics and then entering government could hold any other view than the one that we had from him in 2020."

Asked if she thinks the government is reacting to Reform’s surge in the polls, Ms Dugdale said: "Yes, but even if you diagnose it as a response to Reform and what happened in the local elections last week, it is the wrong one.

“There's not a country in Europe you can point to where the rise of the right was reversed by centre parties moving further to the territory that those right-wing parties occupy. People want a choice and they're not getting that. They're watching centrist parties ape the actions and the policies advocated by the right. That does not make anything better for anyone."

Ms Dugdale’s comments come as UK home secretary Yvette Cooper defended Sir Keir amid criticism that his language as he set out plans to crack down on migration echoed Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech.

Ms Cooper insisted the tone of the Prime Minister’s migration plan was “completely different” from the 1968 anti-immigration speech.