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Keir Starmer has signalled he will bring back UK-EU freedom of movement if he becomes Prime Minister.

In a major pledge today, the leadership candidate said Labour must “make the case” for migration’s benefits and free movement - despite Brexit axing it.

In a Brexit Day speech at Westminster Cathedral Hall, Sir Keir said: ”I want families to be able to live together, whether that's in Europe or here.

“And I want people in this country, in the United Kingdom, to be able to go and study in Europe just as they can now and people in Europe to be able to come and study here.

"We have to make the case for freedom of movement."

He added: “We need to give our EU citizens rights, not tolerance. And that starts with the right to vote."

(Image: Hollie Adams)

If Sir Keir becomes PM in 2024 free movement will already have been removed for EU visitors to the UK - and the other way round.

Boris Johnson is replacing it with a “points-based” immigration system - meaning any new leader would have to negotiate to bring it back.

Asked directly if he would “bring back” free movement for EU citizens as PM, he told the Mirror: “Yes of course - bring back, argue for, challenge.”

We had asked him: “If you become Labour Prime Minister, will you bring back freedom of movement of EU citizens to the UK?”

After giving his answer Sir Keir added that Labour had to challenge policies from the government. “We’ve got to face up to the fact… we are in opposition," he said. “My first year as an MP, 2015 to 2016, I voted 172 times and lost 171. That’s opposition.”

Sir Keir said his mother-in-law had been in intensive care for a week now after a terrible accident - being cared for by people of all nationalities.

“We welcome migrants, we don’t scapegoat them,” he said - adding problems with wages and housing were “political failure”.

And he urged politicians and activists to “summon that same spirit” that liberated the Nazi death camps in 1945.

“We’ve got to have the courage to make the right arguments about our values,” he said.

It comes after he unveiled a new policy to let EU citizens in the UK vote in general elections, from which they’re currently barred.

He did not rule out extending the same right to other UK residents from elsewhere in the world.

(Image: Hollie Adams)

The frontrunner spoke with no notes, no podium and a crowd of a couple of hundred people - putting the focus on being a good opposition in Parliament.

He said it was “fitting” to be back in the shadow of Parliament, where he shadowed three Brexit Secretaries and fought and lost two general elections.

Sir Keir said “it feels like 30 years of change has been shoved into 30 months” - years in which David Cameron “ran off to a shed” and Theresa May, despite her sense of public duty, “couldn’t reach out, couldn’t find a consensus.”

But he branded Boris Johnson “the worst of the lot. A man without any real principle or anger who will go anywhere to stay in power.

“We have to be an effective opposition to him right here right now.”

He said Labour cannot “give up on the argument” about security over Brexit. But he also said Labour must help “bring the country back together.”

He acknowledged many, including EU citizens, would be “anxious and uncertain” but said: “We need to let that divide go. Leave/Remain ends tonight. And that includes for the Labour Party.

“For 40 years the Tories have been arguing about Europe. It has divided them. We will not let them pass the ball to us so we are divided on this for years to come.”

Despite his comments Sir Keir offered no regrets for his push towards Remain and a second referendum last year.

The MP said there were many reasons Labour suffered its worst election defeat since 1935, but Brexit was only one of them.

He added: “We’ve had the Brexit divide. It’s gone deep. We’ve now got to win the peace. We’ve got to win what comes next.”

He said if Labour loses in 2024 it will have been out of power for longest period since the Second World War.

“A whole generation will not have had a Labour government. That’s the price of losing”, he said.