A “sickening” Labour Party leaflet boasting about deporting more people than the Tories has been blasted. The leaflet which shows a passenger jet taking off with the heading “Labour has delivered the four biggest deportation flights in UK history” has been described as "heartless" by Stroud Green Party councillors.
The leaflet details how Labour claim they are tackling illegal migration and says their Government has removed more than 16,000 people with no right to be in the UK. Batches of 500 leaflets are on sale for £17.50 on the party’s website.
But Stroud District Councillor Steve Hyndside (G, The Stanleys) says the leaflet which “politicises people’s lives” doesn’t chime with what people in Stroud care about. And his party’s co-leader Carla Denyer described the leaflet as “sickening” and Labour appear to be revelling in turning people’s lives upside down.
"With local elections around the corner I think people want to know about how their local schools will be supported, housing built and roads fixed,” Cllr Hyndside said. “People will be as confused as they will be horrified that Labour are producing leaflets boasting about deporting more people than the Conservatives.
"This sort of heartless politicising of people's lives doesn't really chime with what most people in Stroud care about."
Ms Denyer said any claim that the Labour Party may have once been the party of compassion has well and truly gone. "Labour's recent leaflet boasting about deporting more people than the Tories is sickening,” she said.
"Labour are failing to provide safe and legal routes into the UK while seemingly revelling in turning people's lives upside down. Any claim the Labour Party may have once had to be a party of compassion or principle has well and truly gone."
However, a Labour Party spokesperson defended the Government’s record and they say they are putting people’s priorities at the heart of their policies. They say they have inherited an immigration and asylum system in chaos and that the UK's borders are weaker due to the Tories.
“The Conservatives had 14 years to reform immigration and asylum, yet they left a system in chaos and our borders weaker; asylum decision making totally collapsed by more than 70 per cent in the six months before the GE – pushing the backlog right up," a spokesperson said.
“This Government was elected on a mandate to change the country and put the people’s priorities at the heart of delivery. That means bringing down the last government’s record high levels of migration and tackling the root causes.
“The Government have spent the summer and autumn reversing that damage, increasing asylum decision making by 52 per cent in the last three months of 2023, removing almost 19,000 people with no right to be here and our crackdown on illegal working resulted in a 73 per cent increase in arrests from the previous year.
"This is a national government issue. What most people are looking for in the coming council elections are better local services and ending waste and inefficiency. This is what Labour is campaigning for in the County Council elections across Gloucestershire".
