Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP stands firm as Starmer stumbles after Reform

As the dust settled on defeats to the Greens in Lambeth and around the country, Labour’s response was to prepare a new immigration crackdown. But Brixton’s Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP offered some principled alternatives to knee-jerk politics.

In the week that Labour leader Keir Starmer wrote in The Times that he ‘gets it’ about ‘uncontrolled immigration’, his team scrambled to outflank the far right with some tough rhetoric on migrants, preparing a new raft of measures aimed at stemming the flow of voters to Reform.

Measures such as curbing low-skilled immigration, and stopping overseas students from applying for asylum are designed to appeal to disaffected Labour voters and Brexit supporters. Meanwhile in the same period, local MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy remained a rare voice of resistance, standing firm on a number of progressive values.

The MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill tabled an amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, to scrap the £1,214 child citizenship fee, a huge administrative charge that leaves British-born children undocumented in their own country. Without urgent reform, the UK risks creating an entire generation of young people, born and raised here, who may later find themselves locked out of employment, housing, and education simply because their families could not afford the price tag on their citizenship.

As Ribeiro-Addy warns, “Like the Windrush Generation, many may end up facing barriers in later life. Subject to immigration rules that were never intended for them.”

Also this week, she co-signed a letter with 40 cross-party MPs demanding Foreign Secretary David Lammy address allegations of continued UK arms exports to Israel, while challenging her party leader over Lambeth’s spiraling rent crisis.

Her confrontation with Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions exposed the weakness of the Renters’ Rights Bill, as reported in the Buzz last week: “When landlords set the market rate, how does capping rents at that rate help?” she asked. The contrast couldn’t be starker. Where the Labour political machine sees risk in defending migrants’ rights or confronting war crime, Ribeiro-Addy sees moral imperative.

While Labour strategists obsess in a race to the bottom with Tories and Reform over migrants, Ribeiro-Addy has given us a few alternative talking points that the party might try out in their focus groups: no genocide, no child priced out of their nationality, no tenant exploitation, build social housing.

Of course, there’s a conundrum in that it’s billionaires who make their wealth from populations whose housing, education and healthcare are the costs of doing business they don’t want to pick up. They control the narratives so no government can make them pick up the cost through taxation or by closing tax havens without being driven from office. I can’t see how we can solve this easily, but perhaps we could start by reiterating it’s those billionaires who keep wages down, not people in small boats, and the NHS is underfunded because these same mega rich refuse to pay any tax.

It’s easier and more profitable to scapegoat brown people in boats.

Well done Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, keep up the good work.

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Citizen UK is a people-powered alliance that aims to overcome injustice, bringing together everyday people and local organisations to build a better, fairer society. They have reported in depth on the child citizenship fees.

Southwark and Lambeth for Palestine on Insta