Mike Tapp tells the presidential nominee’s campaign team they must listen to what hard-working people want
Source - Daily Telegraph - 25/08/24
A Labour MP has urged Kamala Harris not to ignore “valid” concerns about immigration.
Mike Tapp, the MP for Dover and Deal, said he met with Ms Harris’s campaign team on a visit to the United States after the UK election.
He said he urged them not to ignore “worries and concerns around immigration”.
Ms Harris, the Democrat presidential candidate, has been attacked over her position on immigration by Donald Trump, who has called her a “failed border tsar”.
Mr Tapp told GB News: “We went over in January, a group of candidates at the time, to learn from the Americans and the Democrats and look at their campaign methods.
“We went back out after our landslide victory to impart some of our knowledge as to what we learnt on the campaign trail, and to look at what they’re doing with their campaign.
“One of the big messages that I was taking over there was to ensure that with their campaign, they do what we did, and that is, listen to what working class, hard-working people want.
“Don’t ignore them. And for me in Dover and Deal, a perfect example of that is worries and concerns around immigration.
“These people have valid concerns. They’re not racist, we must drop that sort of rhetoric and deal with these issues, just like Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper are doing.
“And it does look like Kamala and her team are going down that route as well, which is great.”
‘It doesn’t happen overnight’
Mr Tapp also said that people needed to have patience with the Government as it looks to tackle immigration, saying “it doesn’t happen overnight”.
He said: “We’ve started recruiting for the new border security commander. We’ve already recruited over a hundred new intelligent officers who are working across Europe. We’ve conducted nine deportation flights. We’re looking at a thousand officers being bought into a specific deportation unit.
“So there’s a hell of a lot of work going on behind the scenes, but these things do take time to have a real impact.
“Rwanda was a gimmick that cost a hell of a lot of money that was wasted, and it would have taken up to a hundred years to deport those that have crossed in that way, it simply wasn’t a deterrent.
“You could argue that we’re 25 per cent lower because of the first 50 days in government, but that’s not the case, right? Let’s be realistic here. We’ve got a lot of work to do and the deterrent that we bring in is twofold.
“Firstly, we’re going to smash the gangs. We’re bringing in the likes of MI5 with those extra powers and tools.”
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