UK Labour leader Starmer's Bangladesh row blamed on 'overwhelming' WhatsApp and TikTok

Jon Ashworth, one of UK Labour Party's election campaign chiefs, has blamed the recent controversy surrounding the party's leader Sir Keir Starmer's recent controversial comment regarding Bangladeshi migrants in the European country on social media platforms like TikTok and WhatsApp where voters are conducting their own campaigns.

There is "a whole campaign going on" with voters sharing their own content in WhatsApp groups and other social media Ashworth told UK-based inews.

Ashworth, a former aide to Gordon Brown and veteran of at least five national campaigns, says the volume of election social media content circulating has become "overwhelming". 

"The interesting thing about this campaign, which is something that we've not really dealt with before, is the extent to which there is almost there's like a whole campaign going on which the media haven't even picked up on, which is happening now, people's own creative content on social media, TikTok, and videos getting shared on WhatsApp," he told i.

According to Ashworth, Labour's "edgy" social media operators have waged an effective meme war.

He, however, said it's not just the traditional media that can be blindsided when an issue goes viral.

Sir Keir Starmer's decision to single out Bangladesh as a country to which a Labour government could return failed asylum seekers during his appearance at The Sun's Never Mind the Ballots caused ructions among voters with a Bangladeshi heritage in constituencies like Ashworth's own in Leicester.

Ashworth, shadow paymaster general, claims to have now calmed a storm he says was whipped up by online content that misrepresented the Labour leader's position.

"I see this hugely in my own constituency, and the extent to which a distorted interview with Keir Starmer, you've referenced the Bangladesh issues, easily could be distorted and can be shared around WhatsApp and TikTok in seconds in a way that could never have happened before."

Asked if he finds it disquieting, he told inews that his constituents are sending him all kinds of memes which he has never had in an election campaign before. "It's actually overwhelming when you open your phone and see this sort of stuff."

Labour leader Keir Starmer has recently come under criticism over a recent comment where he spoke about removing Bangladeshi migrants from the European country.

"At the moment people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed because they're not being processed," he said at a town hall with readers of The Sun, a rightwing tabloid, last week. 

He was being asked about Labour's rejection of the Conservative government policy of deporting migrants who arrive in the UK illegally in small boats to Rwanda. Starmer was trying to explain his policy would be to send illegal migrants back to their countries of origin. 

"The number of people being returned to where they came from has dropped off by 44% under this government. So on the first few days of government, I'll tell you what I do, I'll put the staff back in the returns unit, I'll make sure I've got planes going off, not to Rwanda because that's an expensive gimmick," the labour leader said.

Asked where the migrants would go, Starmer, who is being described as a 'prime minister in waiting', replied, "They will go back to the countries where people come from. That's what used to happen." He then made the reference to Bangladeshi migrants.