What was claimed
Sir Keir Starmer called for more houses to be built for asylum seekers and ‘illegal immigrants’, and said these migrants have to be the priority for the government.
Our verdict
There’s no evidence Mr Starmer said this.
Unevidenced claim Labour leader called for ‘more houses’ for asylum seekers recirculates on Facebook
3 April 2024
A post claiming Sir Keir Starmer called for “‘more houses to be built’ for asylum seekers and illegal immigrants”, and described “migrants” as “the future of our economy” has been recirculating on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter).
The post, which was first shared on X more than a year ago reads: “Keir Starmer calls for ‘more houses to be built’ for asylum seekers and illegal immigrants - ‘These migrants have to be the priority for the government. They are the future of our economy’ he said”.
The original post includes a link to an interview Mr Starmer gave to BBC News in November 2022. But as we’ve previously explained, Mr Starmer did not say this during the interview, and we’ve found no evidence that he’s called for “more houses to be built” for asylum seekers and ‘illegal immigrants’, or made comments to this effect.
We’ve contacted the Labour party for comment and will update this piece if we receive a response.
False or misleading claims about politicians have the potential to affect people’s opinions of individuals, parties or how they choose to vote. We often see these types of claims spread widely online, and have written a number of fact checks about quotes falsely attributed to politicians.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because there’s no evidence Mr Starmer said this.