No, UK PM hasn't told citizens who disagree with him to leave the country

Posts on X, Facebook and TikTok suggest that Keir Starmer is trying to get rid of British citizens while welcoming illegal immigrants.

Transcript

00:00No, the UK PM hasn't told citizens to leave the country for disagreeing with him.

00:09A video is going around on social media which people claim shows Keir Starmer

00:13telling Brits to get out of the country if they don't like what he's doing.

00:17If you don't like the changes that we've made, I say the door is open and you can leave.

00:26Captions that accompany the video on X, Facebook and TikTok suggest that Starmer

00:31is trying to get rid of British citizens while welcoming illegal immigrants.

00:35Others appear to frame the video as Starmer's response to an online petition calling for his

00:39resignation and a general election, which has apparently amassed millions of signatures from

00:44disaffected Brits. However, all of this is misleading, not least because the video is old.

00:49The clip actually comes from a speech that Starmer gave in February 2023,

00:54before he ever became Prime Minister. He was speaking in response to a report by the Equality

00:59and Human Rights Commission, which said that the Labour Party had made sufficient changes

01:03over the two years before to deal with allegations of discrimination and antisemitism.

01:08Starmer's comments telling people to leave if they didn't like the changes were directed

01:12at members quitting the Labour Party, not Brits leaving the country.

01:16There's no evidence he's told anyone to get out of the UK,

01:20whether in response to the petition or in any other context.

01:23A lot of misinformation has swirled about the internet regarding the petition calling

01:27for Starmer's resignation and a general election. While it has garnered just under

01:31three million signatures as of the time of this report, meaning it will be debated by MPs,

01:36there's nothing stopping someone from falsely registering as a UK citizen and signing it,

01:41provided they give a valid postcode and email address.

01:44There have also been false claims that politicians themselves have signed the petition thousands of

01:49times, but their recurring names refer to people in their constituencies who have signed it,

01:54not the MPs themselves.