“The level of racism and misogyny that we face, and this idea that we suddenly want to secure our borders and want to have control, that somehow we are not progressive enough, or we don’t care enough about these issues. We understand it better than anyone.
“We’ve seen our parents’ journeys. We see our own journeys, and we see the state of Britain today. You know, people that look like me, my community, the Sikh community say to me all of the time, ‘We want to see tough action by the Home Secretary. We want to see our border secured.'”
Ms Gill said it is a myth only white working-class voters want curbs on immigration, saying: “Look, I represent a very diverse constituency. Yes, of course, I’ve got white working-class voters. I’ve got about 30 per cent black minority ethnic voters, and let me tell you, working-class voters are united on this position.
“Whether they’re from my background, a Sikh, whether they’re Muslim, whether they’re Hindu, actually they want us to take tough action on this. I get this all the time from people saying, ‘What is the Home Secretary doing? We will respect Labour if it actually can restore security in terms of our borders because the Conservatives just lost control’.