DONALD Trump has praised Keir Starmer’s immigration policy saying the Prime Minister is “doing a fantastic thing” by cracking down on small boats crossings.
The US president was speaking at his golf course in Turnberry, Ayrshire, flanked by Starmer and his wife Victoria Starmer.
Asked about Labour’s mission to stop boats carrying migrants across the English Channel, the US president said: “If you’re stopping immigration and stopping the wrong people, […] my hats are off to you. You’re doing, not a good thing, you’re doing a fantastic thing.
“So I know nothing about the boats, but if the boats are loaded up with bad people, and they usually are, because, you know, other countries don’t send their best they send people that they don’t want, and they’re not stupid people, and they send the people that they don’t want.”
Turning to the Prime Minister, Trump added: “And I’ve heard that you’ve taken a much stronger stance on this.”
Starmer said that he was “very pleased” to have signed a returns agreement with France, which will see people traded across the Channel with France, with some asylum seekers sent back and others brought to the UK.
The Prime Minister has been accused of "trading people like cargo" over the deal, which has sparked serious alarm from human rights organisations.
Trump added: “Europe is going to is a much different place than it was just five years ago, 10 years ago.
“They’ve got to get their act together. If they don’t, you’re not going to have Europe anymore, as you know it, and you can’t do that. This is a magnificent part of the world, and you cannot ruin it.
“You cannot let people come in here illegally. And what happens is, there’ll be murderers, there’ll be drug dealers, there’ll be all sorts of things that other countries don’t want, and they send them to you, and they send them to us, and you’ve got to stop them.”
Labour have pledged to bring down net migration, which is calculated by the number of people entering the country minus those emigrating, and numbers are falling after reaching record highs under the Conservatives.
According to the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, this was expected “regardless of the change in government or any new policies” and was fuelled by policy changes, including much tougher visa rules brought in by the Tories.
However, small boat arrivals – which make up only around 3-4% of immigration overall – have increased and are close to the record levels reached in 2022.
Stricter visa rules have sparked a fall in overseas student applications as well as a decline in the number of people coming to the UK to work in health and social care, prompting fears in both sectors of the economy.
