Danny Kruger has launched a scathing attack on Sir Keir Starmer’s swipe at Reform UK’s “racist” policy, branding the remarks “pathetic”.

Speaking to GB News, the Reform MP declared that “none of us” in the party “qualify for that label”.

Speaking at the Labour Party conference, the Prime Minister said Reform UK’s migration policy is “racist and immoral” for wanting to remove people who are “lawfully here”.

He agreed that he believes illegal migrants should be removed, but claimed illegal deportations are a “completely different thing,” adding, “to reach into people who are lawfully here and start removing them”.

Delivering his verdict on the remarks, Mr Kruger told GB News: “None of us qualify for that label, and isn’t it pathetic that Starmer rolls out this line?

“It’s really the end of the argument when they start throwing the R-word at you.”

Accusing Labour of offering a “watered down” version of their policy on migration, he added: “They didn’t have anything to say about the practicalities of our proposal, which is robust and credible, and it’s radical, but it’s serious.

“And so all they can do is accuse us of racism.

“And then the very next day, they come out with a sort of watered-down version of our own policy, which you can imagine what they would have said if we’d come out with their plan a month ago, they would have called that racist.”

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Declaring the accusation of “racism” is “totally unacceptable”, Mr Kruger swiped: “It’s the end of the argument for them. I think they’ve absolutely given up and are reduced to sort of taking tame versions of our plan and trying to distinguish ourselves from them by calling us a totally unacceptable insult.

“If they’re serious about that, it’s a very, very bad accusation to be making, and it’s clearly wrong.”

Weighing in on the remarks, host Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg argued that using such language discredits the person using it.

He explained: “Well, it’s in the league, isn’t it of Angela Rayner saying ‘Tory scum’ or David Lammy calling people like me Nazis, that it’s using language in a way that actually discredits the user of it, and ends up promoting the person to whom it’s aimed, so yesterday was a good day for Nigel Farage and a bad day for Keir Starmer.”

Agreeing with Jacob, Mr Kruger responded: “I think that’s right, and it’s interesting, these are the people who get very outraged when people on our side of the argument use language that they regard as sort of bellicose.

“Do you remember when Boris was talking about the surrender bill during the Brexit wars and in fact, talking about war, that was unacceptable. We weren’t allowed to use military language.”

He concluded: “If you talk about an invasion of illegal immigrants, you’re accused of sort of stoking up civil conflict, so they are on one side, very keen to kind of police the language, but they throw out this most offensive of all insults really at us. It’s pretty hypocritical.

“And of course, what’s really going on is they’re just trying to close down argument, I mean, ‘Nazi racist’, it’s basically an attempt to say you are a bad person and nothing you say, no matter how practical it is, no matter how popular it is, no matter how sensible it is, can be considered because we now charge you with this brush of a sort of persona non grata.”