Party wants foreign workers to spend 10 years in UK without claiming benefits before being eligible for leave to remain

Anneliese Dodds, the development minister, has given the UK’s strongest opposition yet to Donald Trump’s proposed plan for Gaza, while once again not directly criticising the US president.

Yesterday Keir Starmer made it plain that the UK would not support Trump’s idea of removing Palestinians from Gaza so it could be rebuilt, condemned by many as proposed ethnic cleansing.

There must be no forced displacement of Palestinians, nor any reduction in the territory of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian civilians should be able to return to and rebuild their homes and their lives. That is a right, guaranteed under international law.

The UK is clear that we must see a negotiated two state solution, with a sovereign Palestinian state, which includes the West Bank and Gaza, alongside a safe and secure Israel with Jerusalem as the shared capital that has been the framework for peace for decades.

This isn’t about opinion polls. This is about doing the right thing. It’s about identifying a problem the country faces, which is [that] we’ve had far too many people coming in in recent years.

I think that people need to look at the past. This is not the first time we’ve been in this situation.

I remember 2019, the elections when the Brexit party won [the European elections], we were 9% in the polls. I remember when the SDP was polling at 50%.