The Division Bell podcast got heated on Thursday as The Mirror’s Political Editor John Stevens disagreed with The Express’s Political Editor Sam Lister about how Keir Starmer will deal with immigration.
Sam stated that “the hot topic” at the EPC is “obviously migration. This is a huge, huge problem for all of Europe, not just the UK.”
“They are hoping to make some inroads today on how they are going to tackle this problem in the next few years.”
John pointed out that Starmer has been fortunate because within his first weeks as PM, he has already been to the White House, had a Guinness with Simon Harris, and is due to have dinner with Emmanuel Macron.
Despite the glamour of rubbing shoulders with world leaders, John insisted the main focus had been the discussion of dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean and Channel.
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Listen to our The Division Bell podcast, hosted by Mirror political editor John Stevens and Express political editor Sam Lister.
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Sam predicted that although they “won’t call it a quota”, Labour will come to some kind of arrangement whereby “we take so many asylum seekers from the EU in return for sending back people who made those crossings illegally across the Channel.”
“Because Keir Starmer was so opaque during the election campaign-”
John retorted: “He wasn’t that opaque. He said he was gonna set up a Border Command, smash the gangs, and work on getting return agreements with other countries.”
“You might not like it, but he did say what he's gonna do.”
John also pointed out how “the Tories talked a lot about how they were going to bring the numbers down, and Rwanda was going to be this massive deterrent and despite them detaining people and getting ready to send them - it didn’t have a deterrent at all.”
Sam disagreed: “I actually don't think that’s totally fair because we saw people going to the Republic Of Ireland.”
John stood firm: “The one thing that's a fact is the figures, and the figures didn’t go down.”
Sam pointed out that Keir hasn’t set any figures as a target “because he knows it's not gonna get any better under him.”
However, John insisted: “The alternative is you do what we had for the past 14 years which is constantly coming up with figures that were never met and then you lose all trust of the public.”
“Why would you repeat that under the Labour government?”
Sam insisted that “there needs to be a deterrent, and smashing the gangs is not a deterrent.”
For more, listen to The Division Bell. Thursday’s episode also contains John and Sam discussing Liz Truss, the King’s speech and Labour’s housing plans.