The hard left Labour leader’s incendiary remarks were made about a bid to take away benefits from new arrivals without residency rights
JEREMY Corbyn branded a popular clamp down on illegal immigrants “a racist attack”, The Sun can reveal.
The hard left Labour leader’s incendiary remarks were made about a bid to take away benefits from new arrivals without residency rights.
Instead, the veteran Socialist called for Britain to “stand in solidarity” with people who make it to the UK without passports or ID cards by giving them the taxpayer handouts.
Made just two years before he was elected Labour leader, the surfacing of Mr Corbyn’s extraordinary attack – in a video obtained by The Sun - will reignite a furious debate over his open-door immigration vision.
It came during a diatribe by the veteran Socialist on fellow Labour MPs who backed a clampdown in an address to an anti-capitalism rally in 2013.
Mr Corbyn said: “The general narrative that sadly some in my own party buy into is if we’re going to look good to go into government, we’ve got to look tough.
“Now I don’t mind people being tough - I’m very happy if they are tough on Barclays Bank, or ICI or the International Monetary Fund or the European Central Bank."
“But when the idea of being tough means taking benefits away from somebody because they are a migrant, taking benefits away from children because their parents are undocumented - destroying people’s lives and forcing them into criminality or marginal work because of the inefficiencies, inadequacies, or shear nastiness of the Home Office system.
“That then becomes a racist attack on a minority.”
To cheers, Mr Corbyn added: “We should have no truck with it, no part in it and stand in solidarity with those people”.
The event was a left wing festival dubbed ‘Against Capitalism and War: Dangerous Ideas for Dangerous Times’, on May 30, 2013.
Other high profile Socialist luminaries also there were the former firebrand ex-Labour Cabinet minister Tony Benn.
The surfacing of Mr Corbyn’s racism remarks also come ahead of his most high profile TV election grilling yet on Friday night.
He and Theresa May face a BBC1 Question Time audience, and his stance on illegal immigrants is now likely to come up.
Our revelation today is the latest in a growing series of campaign developments that suggest Mr Corbyn has no intention of reducing the current sky high levels of immigration.
Official figures last week revealed the net number of new arrivals every year is falling, but stills stand at 248,000 a year.
But in the last 10 days alone;
Immigration campaigners last night angrily dismissed any suggestion that benefit sanctions on illegal immigrants are racist.
Migration Watch UK chairman Lord Green said: “This clip shows Mr Corbyn’s complete disregard for strong public concern about the huge scale of immigration that is still taking place.
“It makes it impossible to believe that he will take any remotely serious steps to bring immigration under control.”
Crossbench peer Lord Green added: “It is surely wrong in principle that anyone who has no right to be in this country should be drawing benefits at the expense of the taxpayer”.
During his 32 years as a rebel backbench Labour MP, Mr Corbyn repeatedly voted against moves to crack down on immigration.
The MP for the multi-cultural seat of Islington North has also described the current level of immigration as “very small”.
