Bangladesh High Commission sends letter to Starmer about 'concerning' remarks
The Bangladesh High Commission has called out Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer after he singled out Bangladesh as a country where illegal migrants are not being deported to quickly enough.
In a letter sent to Starmer - and seen by ITV News - the Bangladesh High Commissioner Saida Muna Tasneem said that she had been "approached by a good number of eminent leaders of the Bangladesh Diaspora in the UK who have not only been saddened by your comments but also raised concerns.""Bangladesh was never in the list of top 20 countries with highest numbers of small boat arrivals.
"During the recently concluded first meeting of the Bangladesh-UK Home Office Joint Working Group [it was testified] that not a single case of returns is pending to date," the letter continued.
The letter is however still praiseworthy of Starmer’s attempts to engage with the Bangladeshi community ahead of the General Election on July 4.
Speaking specifically about people who come to the UK illegally earlier this week, the Labour leader told The Sun newspaper: “I’ll make sure we got planes going off…back to the countries where people came from."
He then highlighted Bangladesh as an example, saying “at the moment people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed.”
After his comments, Starmer faced huge criticism from members of the Bangladeshi community, as well as Labour Party members, including Stepney Green Councillor Sabina Akhtar, who has resigned over the issue.
Starmer later apologised, telling ITV News he "wasn't intending to cause any concern or offence" with the comments.
"All I was saying is that as far as asylum returns are concerned, Bangladesh is a safe country," he added.
Home Office statistics show that the top countries of origin of people seeking asylum in the UK are Afghanistan, Iran and India.
In the year ending December 2023, there were 7,500 asylum seekers who arrived from Afghanistan, compared to around 3,500 from Bangladesh.
Despite being around 20 points ahead in the polls, the Labour Party is battling to win back support of British Muslims, many of whom feel unheard by the party over their stance on Gaza.
Data analysis for ITV News after the local elections in May revealed Labour lost 33 percentage points of vote share in areas that are majority Muslim.
Have you heard our new podcast Talking Politics? Every day in the run-up to the election Tom, Robert and Anushka dig into the biggest issues dominating the political agenda…