News / Politics
‘I’m not pleased and not unpleased’
Bristol mayor Marvin Rees is “not pleased and not unpleased” with his party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s view that immigration to the UK from the EU is not too high.
Corbyn has faced accusations of confusion after he appeared to backtrack on suggestions he was ready to re-think his support for EU rules on immigration.
Asked by Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2 about Corbyn not wanting to set caps on the numbers of migrants entering the UK, Rees said: “I’m not pleased and not unpleased with it.”
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He added: “I’m not happy or unhappy. I think you’ve got to look at the context. Whether or not we have numbers, whether or not we have too many or too little depends on what the country needs at a particular point in time, and what the problem is we’re trying to solve.”
Rees told Vine that the discussion about migration is “the wrong answer to the right problem”.
“The right problem we have are that our communities are feeling undermined, they’ve been left behind by globalisation, people are struggling with their sense of Britishness and identity; people are feeling disempowered by the political process. I’m just not confident that immigration is the source and the solution to those problems.
“I think what we’ve got to do is mature the conversation around immigration. I think it’s the wrong debate.”
Bristol’s Labour mayor then spoke about the challenges facing cities across the UK.
“We’ve got core cities that are a quarter of the national economy, 19 million people, and certainly in my city, who voted to remain, without ignoring the voices of people who voted to leave in my city, our point is, immediately after the referendum, how do we stay international as a city?
“How do we capture the benefits of having a diverse population? How do we have the movement of economic opportunity, and people, in and out of Bristol? It’s a different way of looking at the challenge. At the moment we need more space on the national stage for this, for the city voices and not just national politicians.”
Read more: Karin Smyth joins Labour’s Brexit team
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