'Keir Starmer is not a patriotic leader, he opened up our southern border to illegal crossings,' says Matthew Goodwin

Is it patriotic to open up our southern border to illegal crossings — removing any deterrent and allowing illegal migrants to arrive in record numbers?

Is it patriotic to decriminalise illegal migration and grant the right to stay in the UK to the vast majority of people whose first act upon entering our country is to break our laws?

If Labour were patriotic, would it be handing over our sovereign territory to an ally of China? The Chagos Islands deal is set to become one of the most bizarre pieces of diplomacy in British history.

Not only have the Chagos Islands never belonged to Mauritius in the first place, but we are now reportedly set to pay £18billion for the privilege of giving away our own national territory.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

• ‘It’s pervasive’: St George’s Day row erupts as GB News guest says being English is ‘nothing to be proud of’
• Inside 'England's LEAST English town'... where St George's Day could disappear forever
• ‘People are scared!’ England’s most English town admits why ‘embarrassed’ locals won’t celebrate St George’s Day

If the Prime Minister was patriotic, would he have administered a brutal crackdown on the Southport riots and protests—denouncing much of the country?

Many of those involved were simply asking questions about mass immigration, border security, and integration.

Yet they were smeared as “far-right.” Would young mothers and wives like Lucy Connolly be serving two-and-a-half-year prison sentences for what they said on social media — in what was once the home of free speech?

Is it patriotic to rewire our legal system around a two-tier policy that practically discriminates against the white, straight British majority while being more lenient toward minority groups? A policy based on recommendations from none other than Labour Foreign Minister David Lammy?

Is sacrificing equality before the law patriotic? Is it patriotic to stifle freedom of speech through a new definition of Islamophobia — one that limits what we can and cannot say about the religion of Islam and its place within Western liberal democracy?

Labour’s adopted definition, which may soon be enshrined into UK law, defines Islamophobia so broadly that we shouldn't be surprised if people are arrested for simply engaging in legitimate debate about Islamist extremism.

And what about Labour's plan to drag us back into the European Union through the back door? How patriotic is that?

Does it respect the vote of 17 million Brits to restore sovereignty to these islands — while at the same time smashing our borders?

No — I don’t believe the Labour Party is the party of patriotism. Because a truly patriotic leader is someone who understands that a country isn’t really a country unless it controls its own borders.

We can only stop the migrant crisis by leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and overhauling the Human Rights Act.

A patriotic leader would preserve our ancient traditions of free speech and individual liberty. A patriotic leader respects his nation’s sovereignty.

Only when Sir Keir Starmer begins listening to the forgotten majority — the people who are fed up with the political class in Westminster, who have been betrayed time and again on everything from immigration to free speech to economic security — can he even begin to claim to be a patriotic leader.