Some Corbyn allies break with him over issue, suggesting party needs to listen to people who voted to leave the EU

A split within the shadow cabinet has emerged over the issue of immigration after Jeremy Corbyn used his keynote speech to the Labour party conference to suggest there was no need for further controls on the movement of people.



The party leader used his speech in Liverpool to mount a forceful defence of the contribution made by immigrants.

Some of his allies in the shadow cabinet, including Angela Rayner, Barry Gardiner, Andy Burnham and Emily Thornberry all struck a different tone from the party leader by suggesting there may be a case for tighter controls following the vote to leave the EU.

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Burnham declared his intention to resign as shadow home secretary to spend more time on his mayoral campaign in Greater Manchester and used his conference speech to warn that change was needed on immigration. “Labour must face up fully to this fact: millions of our lifelong supporters voted to leave the EU and voted for change on immigration,” he said.

There were reports last night that Shami Chakrabarti could be joining the shadow cabinet as attorney general but a Labour source said nothing had been decided.

Corbyn’s team had briefed overnight that in his speech he would talk about the benefits of immigration and not seek greater controls. The party leader repeated in a morning BBC interview that he did not see a need to bring down the level of immigration and would tackle concerns of voters with a “migrant impact fund” to ease the pressure on public services in affected areas.

Rayner, the shadow education secretary, told the BBC there must be greater restrictions on immigration and described the current system as chaos.



“We have to have controls on immigration, that’s quite clear,” she told BBC News. “You have to know who is coming in to your country and who is leaving your country. We have got to make sure that our economic situation is good for everybody because immigration is a good thing for us, but what undermines [that] is when people feel that it is unvetted and that we are not able to deal with the issues and the concerns that people have around that.”

Meanwhile, Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary and one of Corbyn’s strongest supporters, said there was a “legitimate debate across the party and different areas have different responses”.



The senior MP, who will be in charge of Labour’s policy on Brexit, said her preference would be for Britain to remain in the single market, which is likely to mean accepting unfettered free movement, but she added: “I have been talking to people about how one could control immigration across the UK. It’s in your armoury.”

Gardiner, the shadow energy and trade secretary, was another to say there should be “quality controls on all migration into this country because what the British people want is to know is that if people are coming into the UK it’s going to benefit their lives and not just the people that are coming”.

Former frontbenchers also expressed disquiet. Emma Reynolds, the former shadow communities secretary, said: “The idea that there isn’t any space between unequivocal support for free movement and Ukip’s divisive position is plainly wrong.”

Yvette Cooper, the former shadow home secretary, said Labour must not be “paralysed from debating immigration reform either – or our tin ear to the concerns of the country will stop others listening to our case for helping refugees”, while former shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves caused controversy on Tuesday by suggesting the UK could “explode” if concerns about immigration were ignored.

Despite the discontent among many Labour MPs about the party’s policy, Corbyn stuck firmly to his arguments in his conference speech, where he said migration did not depress wages unless there was undercutting by unscrupulous employers.

He said people’s concerns should be allayed by extra government funding to invest in public services where there is particular pressure from a higher population.

“It isn’t migrants that drive down wages, it’s exploitative employers and the politicians who deregulate the labour market and rip up trade union rights,” he said.

“It isn’t migrants who put a strain on our NHS, it only keeps going because of the migrant nurses and doctors who come here filling the gaps left by politicians who have failed to invest in training.

“It isn’t migrants that have caused a housing crisis; it’s a Tory government that has failed to build homes.”

Speaking earlier on BBC Radio 4, he said he understood “the problems that can come in some areas”, which is why he would create a “migrant impact fund” to ease pressure on public services.

“Migrants that have come to this country make an enormous contribution to it. Our conference understands that and Tom Watson put that case very well about the work that migrants have done in the NHS and education and other industries.”

Pointing out that numbers vary from year to year, Corbyn said there were many industries such as farming that depended on migrant labour.

Asked if people should stop worrying about immigration, he said: “We have to allay people’s concerns about the impact ... and recognise the huge contribution made to our economy and the numbers of people working in the NHS that are pretty crucial to the survival of the NHS.”

He suggested that the UK should continue to accept free movement from the EU, while maintaining access to the single market on the same basis as other member states.