WORSENING anti-immigration rhetoric from Labour’s increasingly right-wing leadership is “silly and amoral,” a former aide to ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn stressed today.

Andrew Fisher, the party’s director of policy under Mr Corbyn between 2015 and 2019, criticised shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Ashworth after he urged firms to “invest in the workforce that they’ve got rather than going straight to international recruitment.”

The “overall tone counterposing British workers v migrant workers is wrong,” Mr Fisher told LBC Radio.

Last week’s official figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that net migration to Britain is estimated to have hit a record 606,000 last year — up 24 per cent on 2021’s total. 

Asked on Sky News if the present points-based system introduced by New Labour prime minister Tony Blair had led to the increase, Mr Ashworth said: “That high figure we are discussing is on the Conservatives’ watch.”

Elaborating on Labour’s policy of restricting the right of bosses to bring in foreign workers, the Leicester South MP added: “Firms should be investing in the workforce that you have got by investing in skills and retraining opportunities rather than going straight to international recruitment — we don’t think that’s fair.”

But Mr Fisher accused Sir Keir Starmer’s front-bench team of a “lack of courage to make a political argument which goes across a whole range of policy sectors unfortunately.

“Migration is a fact of life, there are massive shortages in this country, we should welcome people here, and obviously provide refuge for people fleeing persecution, whether that’s in Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan or anywhere else.”

The former parliamentary researcher noted that 88,000 “migrants” in the latest figures were “returning Brits — I’m sure we’re not going to bar them from coming back.

“If you look at each chunk of the figures, it’s hard to see what to object to. 

“Labour are well ahead in the polls and their tactics are clearly: ‘Let’s not differ too much from the Tories and just be seen as more competent as they increasingly fall apart and are mired in more and more scandal.

“It’s amoral. In reality, people want politicians to level with them. 

“Migration’s probably not going to go down under a Labour government, certainly not in the short-term.”

Mr Fisher agreed with the suggestion that committing to a big cut to migration was a “false promise.”