"The returns agreement with France is important because we need to establish that if you come by boat, you will be returned to France. I accept the numbers [returned so far under the agreement] are low. We had to prove the concept and prove that it could work. We've now done that. But now we need to ramp that up."
"Starmer does not seem to have used this line in other interviews and it is not clear yet whether this is the start of a sustained government attempt to rebrand these as Farage boats, or whether Starmer was just trying to wind up Hope, who often asks questions that reflect the views of his Farage-loving viewers. Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, made a similar argument in his party conference speech."
"Keir Starmer recorded about 10 broadcast interviews yesterday afternoon, after his conference speech, on the basis that they would all be broadcast this morning. They are playing out now. As you would expect, they are very repetitive a lot of the questions and the answers are the same but there are still plenty of new lines in them. One of his most audacious answers came when he was speaking to Christopher Hope, political editor of GB News, Reform UK's favourite TV channel."
Keir Starmer recorded about ten broadcast interviews after his conference speech that were scheduled for broadcast the following morning. He presented the France returns agreement as a mechanism to ensure that Channel arrivals by boat can be returned to France, acknowledged low return numbers so far, and argued that the concept had been proven and needs scaling up. He linked the crossings to Brexit by noting the loss of previous Dublin Convention return arrangements and labeled the boats 'Farage boats.' The line may be intended to provoke GB News viewers or to begin a political rebranding. Ed Davey offered a similar argument and John Rentoul commented.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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