PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s recent comments on immigration were “fundamentally racist,” veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott told the People’s Assembly protest in London on Saturday.

The remarks by Ms Abbott came as thousands took to the streets in a massive show of opposition to a series of spending cuts by Labour that attack the poorest and most vulnerable in society.

Many of the protesters marched with placards that read: “Tax the rich, stop the cuts — welfare not warfare,” and “Cut war, not welfare.”

Protesters hit out at the scrapping of Winter Fuel Payments, keeping the Tory two-child benefit cap, cutting welfare and slashing foreign aid while hiking military spending.

The Prime Minister said last month that Britain risked becoming “an island of strangers” when he announced tighter controls on immigration.

Ms Abbott told protesters in the Whitehall rally that there was an international struggle to “fight the rich and the powerful [and] to fight the racists,” including in her own party.

The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP said the Prime Minister “talked about closing the book on a squalid chapter for our politics — immigrants represent a squalid chapter.

“He talked about how he thought immigration has done incalculable damage to this green and pleasant land, which, of course, is nonsense — immigrants built this land.

“And, finally, he said we risk becoming an island of strangers.

“I thought that was a fundamentally racist thing to say. It is contrary to Britain’s history.

“My parents came to this country in the ’50s. They were not strangers. They helped to build this country.

“I think Keir Starmer is quite wrong to say that the way that you beat Reform is to copy Reform.”

Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn said: “We need a world of peace that will come through the vision of peace, the vision of disarmament and the vision of actually challenging the causes of war, which leads to the desperation and the refugee flows of today.”

Mr Corbyn urged protesters to “go forward as a movement of hope, of what we can achieve together and the society we can build together.”

A spokesperson for the People’s Assembly hit back at claims by Labour that it is being forced to make “tough choices.”

“Real tough choices would be for a Labour government to tax the rich and their hidden wealth, to fund public services, fair pay, investment in communities and the NHS.”

Bin workers from Birmingham, who have been on strike since March over the council attempts to slash pay by up to £8,000 a year, slammed attempts by the authority to make workers “pay for its incompetence.”

Holly Turner, a nurse and founder of the grassroots NHS Workers Say No campaign, said: “Workers are the heartbeat of the NHS and we will fight back,” against cuts and low pay.

National president of Civil Service union PCS Martin Cavanagh reminded the rally to “never accept a government that is more interested in arms sales abroad rather than looking after its people at home.”

John Rees, co-founder of the Stop the War Coalition, vowed that protesters would “stay on the streets until the government gives way or until they move out of the way.”

A speaker from CND demanded that instead of the 12 new nuclear submarines planned by the government in its defence review announced last week, “how about the 12 best schools or hospitals in the history of the world?”

General Federation of Trade Unions general secretary Gawain Little said: “People are right to be angry. They have seen their living standards plummet, their communities torn apart and their public services stretched to breaking point. Not by immigration but by privatisation, lack of investment and the profit extracted by the super-rich.”