Glasgow councillors show support for migrants after Starmer speech
Council leader Susan Aitken said the Government's policy failures are to blame for the city's housing crisis rather than asylum seekers and refugees.
And then SNP and Green councillors united to pass a motion which opposed the Prime Minister's immigration plans.
READ MORE: Labour suffers blow as Albania snubs Rwanda-style scheme
A Labour group amendment wasn't accepted by the SNP. Councillor Allan Casey, the council's homelessness convener who brought the motion, said the group hadn't criticised their government's proposals.
'There was no mention of the rhetoric of your party leader,' he added. 'That's quite a shame.'
Casey said the content of the UK Government's white paper was 'alarming', but the 'language accompanying it is even more dangerous'.
He said the Prime Minister had 'adopted rhetoric that would not be out of place in a Nigel Farage leaflet' after the Reform party's success in recent local elections in England, adding his language 'increasingly mirrors the infamous warnings of Enoch Powell'.
'That kind of fear-mongering has no place in… progressive politics,' Casey said. 'Migration is not a burden, it's a blessing.'
He highlighted its benefits for the city's hospitals, care homes, universities, businesses and public services.
Aitken said the Prime Minister's language was 'in great danger of fracturing the cohesion, integration and the diversity of Glasgow, of Scotland and of the UK as a whole'.
READ MORE: Keir Starmer announces Rwanda-style plan to deport asylum seekers
Councillor Bill Butler, Labour, said: 'Migrants have enriched Glasgow, cultural, socially and economically. Diversity is not a weakness, it is a strength.'
He said the housing emergency, challenges in social care, education and the NHS and the drugs crisis are 'not the fault of migrants, but the responsibility of governments'.
The Labour councillor called for the construction of a 'humane, fair and evidence-based migration policy'. 'Migrants are not the problem,' he said. 'They form an integral part of the solution.'
Following the motion, the council's chief executive will now write to the UK Government and Glasgow MPs to set out opposition to the white paper and seek support for a 'tailored' Scottish visa.
A Green amendment urged Labour MPs and MSPs in the city to distance themselves from the Prime Minister's words and 'unite our country against the real causes of community breakdown… gross wealth inequality and austerity'.
Labour's proposed amendment had stated immigration policy should 'reflect the specific demographic and economic needs of cities like Glasgow, ensuring that they must always provide the ability to develop a humane and rational immigration system'.
Earlier in the meeting, Aitken was asked about the city's housing pressures. She said: 'I want to be clear that while that crisis has been caused by changes to the way the Home Office processes asylum decisions, asylum seekers and refugees are not the cause of the challenges we face. The cause is a failure of Westminster policies.
'We remain firmly committed to being a place of sanctuary, dignity and wellbeing for those who fled war, persecution and hardship.'
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