The shadow Health Minister claimed her leader was shy of publicly standing up to Tory calls for tighter restrictions on the number of newcomers arriving in Britain.
She also claimed Mr Miliband spent too much time worrying about opinion polls which showed that promises to cut immigration were popular with voters.
Her outburst in an interview with a Labour-supporting website intensified the party’s leadership row that has dominated the Parliamentary summer break.
And it provoked fears that many in Labour would reverse the Government’s drive to cut annual net immigration to “tens of thousands” after a mass influx of migrants under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Ms Abbott, a former Labour leadership candidate, told the Progress website: “I’ve spoken to Ed Miliband about this quite a bit.
“I know that, on this issue, Ed’s heart is in the right place and he’s trying hard to position us correctly.
“What weighs with him is the polling, which shows what the Tories are doing on immigration is popular. And it certainly weighs on other members of the shadow cabinet.”
Ms Abbott claimed there was a lack of people at the top of the party willing to make the case for more immigration to the UK. » | Macer Hall | Thursday, August 22, 2013
