Good morning. On Monday, Keir Starmer added his name to the dubious list of prime ministers who have used very forceful language to describe the impact of migration on the UK. The UK is at risk of becoming an “island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together”, he said; the system “seems almost designed to permit abuse”. But while the tone echoed much of the rhetoric of the last 20 years, Starmer insisted he was doing something different.
In his speech launching the government’s immigration white paper, he accused the Conservatives of a “one-nation experiment in open borders conducted on a country that voted for control”, and said that “the experiment is over”. He also claimed that his approach was not about politics. But with Reform UK on the march, this looks thoroughly political. And even to some of his own backbenchers, his approach looks very likely to fuel racism.
