On a sunny Friday morning on the Kent coast, Keir Starmer held a press conference that would have been beyond the wildest dreams of Labour’s most senior strategists just a few weeks ago. Entering the small room near Deal alongside the Labour leader were his shadow home secretary, the prospective Labour candidate for the seat, and Natalie Elphicke, the rightwing former Tory MP for Dover who had shocked Westminster two days earlier by defecting to Labour. Along with the others, she delivered the dream line for Starmer’s team: the Tories were “failing to keep our borders safe and secure”.
Here, seemingly, were the right and left of the political establishment uniting to conclude that, even on the issue of immigration that has caused such strife for Labour throughout the decades, this was the party with a plan. After a thumping set of local election wins, Labour was mopping up an area and a topic the Tories had previously believed was one of their strongest suits.
