The former Green Party leader slammed the two main leaders' positions on migration
The final head to head debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer took place in Nottingham this evening and was broadcast on the BBC.
Among the issues the leaders clashed over was migration, with both Sunak and Starmer doing their best to illustrate that they would be tougher than the other.
In that discussion, Starmer accused Sunak of being the ‘most liberal’ prime minister the UK has ever had on migration, and repeated his arguments that he wanted to ‘smash the people smuggling gangs’ and speed up the processing of asylum applicants in the UK. He also said that small boat crossings were the ‘biggest threat’ to the UK’s borders.
Meanwhile, Sunak accused Starmer of wanting to surrender Britain’s borders and talked up the efficacy of his infamous Rwanda deportation scheme.
The Green Party’s former MP Caroline Lucas criticised the tone and nature of that debate. She took to X to brand the debate ‘two men trying to outdo each other with cruelty’. She went on to say that we needed to introduce safe and legal routes through which people can claim asylum.
She described the debate as: “2 men trying to outdo each other with cruelty to some of most vulnerable people – totally dehumanising debate about refugees & asylum seekers. Note to them both: people seeking asylum are not “illegal migrants” – what we need to stop the boats are safe & legal routes #BBCDebate”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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