Britain’s Labour Party’s conference has played host to the foreign-funded Hope Not Hate group, which has said Labour must start talking to “racist” working class people if the party wants to defeat the UK Independence Party.

Speaking at an event at Labour’s conference in Liverpool on Monday, John Page from the notorious Hope Not Hate group, said that supporters of mass migration are “smarter than” working class voters who have turned away from the party to support the UK Independence Party (UKIP). He insisted that the only way Labour can reclaim such voters is for activists to go out and speak with them in order to change their opinions.

Just under four million people voted for UKIP in last May’s general election, resulting in the party coming second in 120 constituencies. A large number of these were areas long considered to be in “safe” Labour seats, and UKIP’s new leader Diane James has expressed an interest in UKIP targeting Labour seats in the north of England.

The party decimated Labour’s majority in the Heywood and Middleton seat in the 2014 by-election, slashing it from 6,000 votes to just 600, and marking its position as Labour’s main opposition in the north of England.

In his speech Page said: “If we want to win in these communities and I’m thinking about places like Rotherham, like Dudley, like Merthyr Tydfil, like Thurrock, we need to start off with a discussion with people who hold racist views.

“It’s no good saying to ourselves we are going to go out and find the people who are anti-racist and we are going to have a little meeting or a little rally or put up a banner saying ‘refugees welcome here’ because in some of these communities refugees are not welcome, in fact, refugees are held to be the problem.”

He added: “We cannot deal with the racism that is growing in some of these communities by myth-busting by being smarter than people, but trumping them with facts, we have to do something very different.

“We have to distinguish between the hard racists who are actually off-the-spectrum, and those people who are not inherently racist but have adopted racist views and narratives, what I would refer to as ‘I’m not racist but…’ Those are the people that we need to engage with.”

Hope Not Hate chief Nick Lowles also addressed the meeting, asserting that Labour MPs are wrong to agree with ending freedom of movement within the European Union (EU).

A number of the party’s MPs including high-profile Remain campaigner Chuka Umunna have said the ‘Brexit’ deal should end freedom of movement. He told the room: “I think that’s morally, politically and tactically wrong.”

Funded by notorious, open borders-supporting, hedge fund managing billionaire George Soros, Hope Not Hate released a controversial report last year that smeared Muslims who campaign against Islamic extremism.

Moderate Muslims in turn slammed the document, which purportedly “exposes” groups and individuals who are “anti-Muslim”, as “hate-filled” and “totally discredited”. Readers were shocked to see devout Muslims who campaign against hardline, intolerant aspects of their religion fingered by authors Lowles and Joe Mulhall as “Islamophobic”.