Senior Labour figures at odds over freedom of movement

Labour’s policy on immigration was in disarray on Thursday after Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, appeared to contradict the more hawkish approach of the head of the UK’s biggest union and one of the party’s most influential policymakers.

Ms Abbott took to Twitter to insist that the party was “committed to maintaining and extending freedom of movement rights” of the 3m EU citizens living in the UK, just days after Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite said it would be “wrong” to have greater freedom of movement without stricter labour market regulation.

The divergent views underline Labour’s deep divisions over immigration, which is expected to be a big issue in the election next month, ahead of Saturday’s “Clause 5” meeting, when members of the National Executive Committee, the shadow cabinet and key trade unionists will meet to agree the party’s election manifesto.

Ms Abbott’s language on freedom of movement echoed that of a motion passed by activists at the party’s conference in September which Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his election team are looking to pare back.

Immigration is one of a number of conference commitments that Mr Corbyn and his team are preparing to water down in the manifesto.

When asked about the party’s immigration policy, the Labour leader told the BBC on Thursday that the manifesto would not include “necessarily every last dot and comma of every resolution passed at conference”.

Mr McCluskey, who has maintained a strong influence over Labour policy since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015, told the Guardian earlier this week that the motion passed at the conference was not a “sensible approach” and that he planned to express that view at Saturday’s meeting

“It’s wrong in my view to have any greater free movement of labour unless you get stricter labour market regulation,” Mr McCluskey told the newspaper.

Ms Abbott added that Labour would “scrap” the minimum income requirement for UK citizens wanting to bring in a spouse from outside the European Economic Area, which covers the EU, plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. She said the Tory policy broke up families.

Ms Abbott’s intervention on Twitter came in response to an attack on Labour’s stance on immigration by home secretary Priti Patel just hours after she had confirmed the Conservative party’s drawn-out climbdown on its 2010 pledge to reduce annual net immigration to below 100,000.

Instead Ms Patel committed the party to reducing immigration if re-elected and ending freedom of movement without given any further policy details beyond confirming the party planned to bring a points-based system similar to the one used by Australia.

Annual net migration has remained well above 100,000 since the Conservatives adopted the target almost a decade ago. In the year to March 2019, the most recent period available, the figure stood at 226,000.

Ms Patel said the Tories, if elected with a majority, would “put the needs of the country first, welcoming the best and brightest but cutting low-skilled immigration”.