Keir Starmer admitted he would not want to live next to an asylum hotel today as he insisted he wants to speed up closures.
The PM stressed he wanted the facilities to shut in an ‘orderly’ way but acknowledged that the 2029 target for getting rid of them needs to be brought forward.
Challenged during a BBC Radio 5 Live interview how he would feel if his daughter was having to walk past an asylum hotel every day, Sir Keir said: ‘I completely get it. Local people by and large do not want these hotels in their towns, in their place – and nor do I.’
However, Sir Keir pleaded with Brits not to believe Nigel Farage’s ‘fanciful’ solutions to the problems.
The comments came as Yvette Cooper prepares to face MPs following a torrid summer dominated by protests over Channel boats and immigration.
Sir Keir staged a relaunch today, reshuffling officials – but was ridiculed for a bizarre video claiming he had ‘completed phase one’ and was moving on to ‘phase two’.
Tory frontbencher Robert Jenrick compared the footage to cringeworthy middle-manager David Brent from The Office.
Keir Starmer has revealed he has an England flag hanging in his flat.
Asked whether people putting up the Union and St George’s Cross flags could be considered racist, the PM told BBC Radio 5 Live: ‘I am supporter of flags.’
He added: ‘I am the leader of the Labour Party who put the Union Jack on our Labour Party membership cards. I always sit in front of the Union Jack. I’ve been doing it for years, and it attracted a lot of comment when I started doing it.’
The Prime Minister also said his family has ‘got St George’s flag in our flat’ in Downing Street.
He went on: ‘I’m very encouraging of flags. I think they’re patriotic and I think they’re a great symbol of our nation.
‘I don’t think they should be devalued and belittled. I think sometimes when they’re used purely for divisive purposes, actually it devalues the flag.
‘I don’t want to see that. I’m proud of our flag.’
In his interview, Sir Keir said: ‘When I took over as leader of the Labour Party, I said there will be sort of three phases to this.
‘You’ve got to sort of build the fundamentals first and then you move on to the second stage. So, this should be seen more as moving on to the second phase than a reshuffle.’
He added that he was not ‘angry’ about the pace of change his Government had managed, but said he was ‘frustrated, I get the frustration and anger of voters because they want change’.
Sir Keir added: ‘I want to deliver that change as quickly as possible. Today is about moving on to that second phase.
‘I say delivery is the absolute key word and that’s why I’m really pleased with the changes today.’
Pressed when things would get better, Sir Keir said: ‘What I would say is we spent the first year sort of fixing the foundations, if you like, doing the hard yards.
‘But we now enter into phase two of the government, which is where we focus on delivery, delivery, delivery, and start to show what a difference a Labour government really makes.
‘And so yes, it was always going to take time … and the frustration I completely understand.
‘I want to go further and faster and that’s amongst the reasons I’ve done some changes here at Number 10 today.’
Despite overseeing record numbers of crossings from France this year, Ms Cooper claimed this afternoon that Labour’s plans are already working.
She pledged to press ahead with a shake-up of the asylum appeals process, which currently takes an average of a year.
A new panel will prioritise cases involving foreign criminals and migrants living in hotels, with the aim of halving times to less than 24 weeks.
She is also making it harder for refuges to bring family members to this country unless they meet basic standards like speaking English.
Ms Cooper argued the changes are designed to bring ‘greater fairness and balance’ to a system that is struggling to maintain public confidence.
She blamed the last Conservative government for leaving the system in ‘chaos and disarray’, and warned that the government is facing ‘complex challenges (which) require sustainable and workable solutions, not fantasy promises which can’t be delivered.’
‘Britain has a proud record of giving sanctuary to those fleeing persecution, including in recent years from Ukraine and Hong Kong and we must do more to help students from Gaza,’ she said. ‘But the whole system needs to be properly controlled and managed, so the rules are respected and enforced, and so governments not criminal gangs decide who comes to the UK.’
The Home Secretary’s Cabinet colleague Bridget Phillipson fuelled anger yesterday by defending deploying government lawyers to keep open an asylum hotel in Epping, saying the rights of arrivals trumped those of local residents.
IN
Darren Jones – The Treasury minister has been promoted to a new position as Chief Secretary to the PM.
Minouche Shafik – The former deputy governor of the Bank of England has been drafted in as the PM’s Chief Economic Adviser.
Dan York-Smith – The top Treasury official is moving to No10 as the PM’s Principal Private Secretary (PPS).
Tim Allan – The former adviser to Tony Blair, who went on to found the Portland public affairs agency, is the new Executive Director of Communications in Downing Street.
Vidhya Alakeson – The PM’s Deputy Chief of Staff is to take on an additional role overseeing policy and delivery in No10.
OUT
James Lyons – The former journalist is quitting as No10’s strategic communications director after less than a year in the role.
Nin Pandit – The former NHS England official is no longer the PM’s PPS. But she is remaining in No10 to lead work on delivering the PM’s key priorities.
The Government and the Bell Hotel’s owner last week succeeded in overturning an interim injunction which would have required asylum seekers to be removed from the site.
Epping Forest District Council, which applied for the injunction, is considering taking the case to the Supreme Court.
Protests continued in Epping last night, with police arresting three people.
Around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the council building on Sunday evening, where a woman climbed the steps and unfurled a Union flag.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp dismissed plans to tighten rules on those granted asylum bringing family members to the UK as a ‘tiny tweak’.
‘I’m afraid the truth is this is a tiny tweak that will make very little difference,’ shadow home secretary he told BBC Breakfast.
He said the Government was ‘in complete denial’ about the scale of the ‘borders crisis’.
He said: ‘To be quite honest, people who cross the channel illegally shouldn’t be able to bring any family members over here at all.
‘In fact, if the Government was serious about fixing this issue, what they would be doing is making sure that everybody who arrives illegally is immediately removed.’
Asked why the Conservatives did not restrict people’s ability to bring family into the UK when in power, he pointed to the now-scrapped Rwanda plan, which he said would have seen ‘every single illegal immigrant crossing the Channel immediately removed to Rwanda’.