Local Conservative Facebook ad featured misleading ‘100,000 migrants’ claim

We’ve spotted more examples of a misleading claim about Labour’s immigration plans which we’ve written about many times before.

A post by Jonathan Gullis MP, promoted as a political advert on Facebook by the Stoke-on-Trent Conservative Party, claimed that Labour “want to extend our borders to the Mediterranean by joining an EU quota sharing scheme, which would open our doors to more than 100,000 illegal migrants to the UK”.

The ad, which Facebook’s ad library says ran between 12 and 17 January and received 5,000-6,000 impressions, includes a clip of Mr Gullis making a similar claim on GB News. He also made a similar claim on BBC Politics Live [11:55] on Wednesday.

The figure was also referenced by another Conservative MP, Robin Millar, during an interview on Wednesday on BBC Radio Wales [1:12:45].

As we’ve written on multiple occasions, including earlier this week, the oft-repeated claim is misleading. The 100,000 figure is based on inaccurate Conservative party analysis of a recent EU agreement which Labour has said it has no plans to join.

It is true that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has previously said Labour would seek a returns agreement with the EU, but as the party hasn’t offered further detail there’s no reliable way of knowing the number of migrants it might involve.

Even if the UK were to participate in the EU agreement, or one operating on a similar basis, the Conservative calculation misinterprets what the agreement established in June last year would involve. 

Oxford University’s Migration Observatory has also told us: “The claim that a returns deal with the EU would mean the UK accepting 100,000 asylum seekers from Europe is incorrect: there are no two ways about it.”

Misleading political advertising damages democracy, yet it persists unregulated and unaccountable. Last year Full Fact wrote to the leaders of UK political parties asking them to commit to ensuring their party's advertising ahead of the upcoming general election is honest and truthful, and to have the party's political advertising independently regulated in elections that follow. So far the Green Party, Alliance Party and Plaid Cymru have agreed to this.