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.
The Government has already U-turned today and I think the pressure is clearly growing for proper accountability over what this Government’s negotiating position is on Brexit.
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.
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.
Politics is changing and as the demographics of different constituencies change so we need to be awake to the possibility of making gains where we have not traditionally done so.
I take a very simple view that a violent extremist at some point previously been an extremist, and by definition is an extremist, so you do need to look at that non-violent extremism.
