THE Home Secretary has slammed Sir Keir Starmer for his comments about returning Bangladeshi migrants – calling them a “weird dog whistle attack”.
James Cleverly took aim at the Labour leader after he singled out people from the south Asian country during The Sun’s election showdown last week.
Starmer has been forced to say he meant no offence over the comments and highlighted to contributions made by the community to the UK.
Cleverly told the BBC this morning: “Labour keep saying they’re going to do less, they’re going to scrap the Rwanda scheme. They are going to scrap the Rwanda scheme, they’ve said they’re going to do that even if it’s working.”
He added: “The only intervention recently that Keir Starmer has had on this is this weird dog whistle attack on the Bangladeshi community where he’s claiming that that we are not returning people to Bangladesh which was, A, not true and, B, not relevant, because the Bangladeshi community make a tiny, tiny, tiny, less than a half a percent of small boat arrivals.
“So I know why they don’t want to talk about immigration because whenever they do talk about it, they put their foot in their mouth, and people can see through this, they are not committed to controlling our borders.”
Sir Keir’s comments on The Sun’s Election Showdown sparked an explosive row after he singled out Bangladesh as somewhere not enough illegal migrants are sent back to.
The Labour chief told a live audience of Sun readers: “I’ll put the staff back in the returns unit, I’ll make sure I’ve got planes going off, not to Rwanda because that’s an expensive gimmick.
“At the moment people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed because they’re not being processed.”
But only 108 asylum applications were recorded from the South Asian country in the last four quarters, including dependants.
Edited clips of the comments have been shared across Bangladeshi community WhatsApp groups and triggered fire and fury among activists with ties to the South Asian state.
The Deputy Leader of Tower Hamlets Labour resigned over the comments.
In a scathing statement Sabina Akhtar said: “I was a proud Labour party member, but I find I cannot be proud of this party anymore when the leader singles out my community and insults my Bangladeshi identity.”
Candidates representing large Bangladeshi communities jumped to distance themselves from the comments.
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Uma Kumaran posted on X: “I understand why many are upset about an edited clip they have seen online.
“Across Stratford and Bow we are enriched by the pioneering contributions and the hard work of the British Bangladeshi people.
“I will always stand up for our Bangladeshi community.”
Defending his comments, Starmer said last week: “I’ve got many Bangladeshi constituents in my own constituency I’ve been working with for many years.
“And I want to build on that in government and to recognise the success that is already there.
“The reference in the debate the other day, was an example of a country that is considered safe as far as asylum concerns and one of the countries that actually has a returns agreement with us.
“That is actually a good thing that we and Bangladesh should be proud of that we have this returns agreement.
“I certainly wasn’t intending to cause any concern or offence to any Bangladeshi community here.”
