Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:22 pm on 15 October 2019.
Well, the First Minister will know that any projections to be published next week could easily be falsified if we had the misfortune to elect a Labour Government in the near future, because, at the Labour Party conference, the Labour Party voted, in effect, to abolish all effective control of immigration. In particular, they set themselves against any future form of immigration control based on quotas, caps, targets or incomes, and promised to get rid of the current rules that restrict access to accommodation and the national health service for many immigrants— also to get rid of the 'no recourse to public funds' policy that prevents some immigrants from claiming benefits.
He will remember that when the Blair Government decided to allow unrestricted immigration from eastern Europe, after countries like Poland and Hungary were allowed to join the EU, Len McCluskey, the leader of Unite, said in 2016 that the effect of that was that it was a
'gigantic experiment at the expense of ordinary workers' and led to
'sustained pressure on living standards' and a systematic attempt to hold down wages and cut the costs of social protection for working people. So, is the First Minister saying that he is now in favour of continuing that massive experiment, which Len McCluskey says is against the interests of working people? Isn't the truth of the matter that the Labour Party, in the frantic pursuit to have migrant votes, has actually abandoned the working classes of Britain—in particular, the white working class?