Labour immigration plan would've blocked my family, says Humza Yousaf
Writing for LBC, Scotland's former First Minister said it was 'painful' to see the Scottish Labour leader 'fall into line' behind the Prime Minister.
Yousaf also criticised the Prime Minister's 'island of strangers' speech, saying Starmer was 'framing our increasingly diverse nation as being contaminated by foreign customs, languages, and loyalties.'
READ MORE: Keir Starmer 'severely impairing' Scottish Labour, former party leader says
He added: 'It was a moment that underlined a lamentable truth: the Labour Party has become so desperate to stem the decline in their polling, they haven't just lurched to the right but are comfortable embracing rhetoric once confined to the hardest edges of the Conservative Party and now central to Nigel Farage's Reform Party.'
In his piece, Yousaf said he was speaking as 'the proud grandson of immigrants' and that 'watching [Sarwar] fall into line behind Keir Starmer… is painful.'
He wrote: 'Under current rules, neither Sarwar's father nor my own would have been allowed into the UK to build prosperous lives, not only for their own families but for the hundreds, if not thousands of people they have employed over the years.
(Image: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire) 'Sarwar's promise of standing up to Starmer and up for Scotland is rightly ridiculed, and as I suspect Anas will find out the people of Scotland see right through it.
'My grandparents worked night shifts in factories and restaurants so their children could flourish. We should feel a sense of pride that in Britain at one time we had a Muslim Mayor of London, Hindu PM and Scottish-Pakistani First Minister. That is a blueprint for other nation's on how multiculturalism has been a success, not a failure.'
A spokesperson for the Scottish Labour leader said Humza Yousaf had written a 'desperate attack' and that he 'deliberately misunderstands and misrepresents Anas Sarwar's position on a number of issues.'
(Image: PA)
The spokesperson added: 'It is possible to celebrate the positive impact of immigration and diaspora communities in our society, while believing we need a managed and controlled immigration system. To pretend otherwise only helps right wing politicians to use the issue to divide our communities.
'It is worth remembering that Humza Yousaf is a former Health Secretary and former First Minister who helped create a social care crisis in Scotland by breaking the system, cutting budgets for councils, failing to workforce plan, and delivering chronically low pay and conditions for care workers.'
READ MORE: Europe's first museum of contemporary Palestinian art opens in Edinburgh
Yousaf later wrote: "The proposal to axe social-care visas in particular exposes the cruelty and absurdity of this approach. Scottish Care's director, Donald MacAskill, has rightly slammed the plans, warning it will leave dementia sufferers and the elderly with no one to assist them.
"When you rip away a route that allows dedicated carers, who contribute significantly to caring for our elderly, within a country that has an ageing population, you don't solve a political problem, you create a crisis."
The former first minister went on to praise his successor John Swinney for condemning Reform UK, writing: "I commend the First Minister for demonstrating leadership by condemning Reform's vile rhetoric and standing firmly for inclusive values. If only more politicians had such conviction, we would not be on the brink of possibly handing the keys of Number 10 to Nigel Farage."
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