As I’ve said previously as home secretary, dealing with immigration isn’t just a single issue and a single measure and a single step that you take. You’ve got to keep working at that over time.
We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act. About the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because, and I am not making this up, he had a pet cat.
Sham marriages have been widespread; people have been allowed to settle in Britain without being able to speak English; and there have not been rules in place to stop migrants becoming a burden on the taxpayer. We are changing all of that.
Labour completely accepts and recognises the vote to leave the EU. The question is what is the agenda for that process and that needs to be held to account in Parliament now and that means it needs to be open to a vote.
One of the issues that has been an issue in how we deal with net migration up until now is that we haven’t been able to have any control over freedom of movement from the European Union. We will have that control in the future once we leave the EU.
