LABOUR activists warned today of a shift to the right in the party’s rhetoric on immigration after Sir Keir Starmer told business leaders that the “days of cheap labour must end to wean Britain off its immigration dependency.”

Addressing the closing day of the Confederation of Britain Industry’s (CBI) annual conference in Birmingham, the former shadow Brexit secretary called for a plan to train British workers and move the economy away from its “low-pay model.”

His speech came a day after Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak largely ignored CBI calls for a “more liberalised approach” to immigration to plug chronic labour shortages across the country.