One hundred days after the vote for Brexit, Labour MPs have told BuzzFeed News why they will carry on making the positive case for immigration.
In a series of interviews Karen Buck and former minister Pat McFadden said that the party should keep on backing freedom of movement, while Thangam Debbonaire said that even voters who backed leaving the EU could be convinced to support it.
The comments come after the party's conference in Liverpool revealed deep divisions over the issue within Labour.
While re-elected leader Jeremy Corbyn used his end-of-conference speech to say the party would not seek to curb freedom of movement, several prominent centrist MPs declared that Labour should not fight to retain it in Brexit negotiations.
In a pamphlet published by the Fabian Society, Rachel Reeves, shadow pensions secretary under Ed Miliband, wrote that “immigration controls and ending free movement has to be a red line post-Brexit – otherwise we we will be holding the voters in contempt".
Stephen Kinnock added that "the referendum had a clear message: the limitless nature of freedom of movement, despite its proven economic benefits, is not socially and politically sustainable".
Emma Reynolds, another shadow minister under Miliband, said that "Leave voters clearly said that their concerns about immigration trumped their worries about the economic cost of leaving".
Bristol West MP Debbonaire, however, thinks Labour can still make a strong case in favour.
"What interests me about the debate is that we’re all coming at it from different sides now. Some of my colleagues have gone from 'OK, we want free movement of people to stay', to 'we’re going to have to compromise because of what the electorate wants'. I’m not saying I’m against compromise, but we need to listen to what people are actually saying.
"In my constituency, what they’re telling me is that they work for universities, and that they’re already being cut out of research partnerships, they work in the tech industry, and are worried about their ability to trade, and there are also those who need to move around freely, who work in the creative industries, and the thought of having 27 visas to go on tour, that is part of what we’re giving up, and I think we need to be painting those pictures of what it means for individual people, some of whom have voted Brexit."
Debbonaire, who campaigned for Remain during the referendum, also thinks that those who voted to leave the European Union could end up supporting a "soft" Brexit, which would mean that the UK would stay in the single market, and keep free movement of people.
"Scratch a Brexit voter and you’ll find someone who has at least thought about retiring to Spain, or whose son or daughter has thought about going to university in Europe instead of Britain because of student fees, or someone who has a friend or relative who has been offered a job which will take him or her around Europe," she said.
"Or someone who runs a small or medium-sized business and is expanding and wants to trade with Europe in the single market, or someone who works for a big industry, like the aerospace industry in my constituency, who have apprentices who can move freely between their German site, their French site, their British site, and that’s benefitting young working class kids in Bristol, in Cardiff.
"All of these benefits of free movement have not been spelled out."
Westminster North MP Buck, who supported Owen Smith during the leadership contest, agreed.
"Of course, the fears and concerns many Leave voters have about migration, specifically regarding their sense of the impact on communities, services and the labour market, have to be heard and responded to. They are deeply felt and inevitably intensified by any sense of being ignored," she told BuzzFeed News.
"Yet the proper response does not lie, in my view, in abandoning the single market, of which free movement is such a key element. It is a sad fact that the consequences of leaving the EU were not spelled out clearly and honestly in the referendum campaign, either in terms of the potential costs in other areas, such as the need for alternatives where there are labour shortages, for example."
Buck also worries that ending freedom of movement wouldn't adequately deal with the concerns of those who voted to leave the EU: "The underlying problems driving many voters’ concerns received too little attention and too little action has been taken to resolve them. This government in particular has failed in tackling minimum wage and agency employment abuses, rogue landlords, inadequate investment in health, education and housing.
"Yet replace free movement under the single market with a different system and it is likely that areas with many migrant workers now would still need them and have them. We may well take the economic hit of Brexit but still not satisfy those for whom ‘leave’ equalled an end to migration."
Former shadow Europe minister McFadden, who was sacked by Corbyn in January, said that though voters' concerns on immigration must be heard, a positive case for it can be made: “I believe it’s important to consider immigration alongside trade and our economic future, and not treat these as entirely separate issues."
A member of the Open Britain Group, aimed at promoting a "soft" Brexit, McFadden added: “So as we argue for reform, we should not forget either the advantages of the single market, or the positive contribution most immigrants make to our economy.”