Labour MP says Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ warning over immigration mimics scaremongering of far right – UK politics live
Labour MP says Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ comment ‘mimics scaremongering of far right’
The leftwing Labour MP Nadia Whittome has criticised Keir Starmer for saying this morning Britain risked becoming “an island of strangers” without fair immigration controls. (See 9.53am.) She posted these on Bluesky.
The step-up in anti-migrant rhetoric from the government is shameful and dangerous.
Migrants are our neighbours, friends and family.
To suggest that Britain risks becoming “an island of strangers” because of immigration mimics the scaremongering of the far-right.
Blaming migrants for a housing crisis and failing public services lets the real culprits off the hook: landlordism, chronic underinvestment and deepening inequality.
Labour was elected to tackle those, not parrot Reform’s scapegoating, which will never improve people’s lives.
Other leftwingers have said similar things. This is from Apsana Begum, who was elected as a Labour MP but who is currently suspended over a rebel vote.
I’m proud to represent an East London constituency where diversity is a strength —where communities include migrants from all around the world.
We must end, not embolden, the hostile environment.
I will be voting against the Border Security, Asylum & Immigration Bill this week.
And this is from Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who was elected last year as an independent.
The problems in our society are not caused by migrants or refugees.
They are caused by an economic system rigged in favour of corporations and billionaires.
If the government wanted to improve people’s lives, it would tax the rich and build an economy that works for us all.
Key events
-
Ministers reprimanded by Speaker for announcing details of immigration white paper before they were announced to MPs
-
Labour MP Clive Lews says watering down article 8 weakens protections ‘for all of us’
-
Nicola Sturgeon confirms she will vote against Scotland’s assisted dying bill
-
Police investigating fire at Starmer’s home in north London
-
Starmer criticised for phrase that echoed Enoch Powell’s ‘strangers in their own country’ claim in Rivers of Blood speech
-
Plan to make migrants wait 10 years for earned settlement will prolong their insecurity, charity says
-
Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ comment not anti-migrant, says minister
-
Labour MP says Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ comment ‘mimics scaremongering of far right’
-
White paper plans could ‘jeopardise sustainability’ of universities, sector warns
-
‘Crushing blow’ – Care England condemns ‘cruel’ decision to stop issuing social care visas
-
White paper plans will have ‘devastating’ impact on care sector, says Scotland’s SNP government
-
CBI expresses concerns about white paper, suggesting PM wrong to say businesses reliant on cheap foreign labour
-
Immigration white paper plans could ‘damage rather than encourage integration’, thinktank says
-
Green party dismisses immigration white paper plans as ‘panicked and misguided’
-
Farage says Reform UK only party committed to leaving ECHR to tackle illegal migration
-
Badenoch claims Starmer not sincere about wanting to reduce immigration
-
Starmer claims soaring immigration has done ‘incalculable’ damage to UK, economically and politically
-
Starmer says leaving ECHR would stop UK negotiating migration crackdown deals and return agreements
-
How Home Office summarises plans in its immigration white paper
-
Home Office publishes white paper, claiming its measures could cut immigration numbers by around 100,000
-
Key points from Starmer’s press conference on immigration
-
Starmer rejects claim he has changed his views on deporting foreign criminals
-
Starmer says, if further policies needed to cut net migration, he will introduce them
-
Starmer promises net migration will fall ‘significantly’ by end of this parliament
-
Starmer rejects claim immigration white paper is just ploy to see off electoral threat from Reform UK
-
Starmer says his policies will deliver ‘take back control’ of migration promised, but not delivered, by Tory Brexiters
-
Care sector expresses alarm about plan to end international recruitment of care workers
-
Keir Starmer to announce new measures to ‘tighten up’ immigration system
Ministers reprimanded by Speaker for announcing details of immigration white paper before they were announced to MPs
Caroline Nokes, the Commons deputy speaker, reprimanded the government before the start of the immigration white paper statement for releasing details of it to the media before announcing it in parliament.
She said the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, could not understand why the government kept ignoring rules saying announcements must be made to MPs first. Those rules are no longer being respected, she said. She said Hoyle could be considering what could be done to “regularise the situation”.
Labour MP Clive Lews says watering down article 8 weakens protections ‘for all of us’
The immigration white paper says the government will legislate to clarify the circumstances in which people can use article 8 of the European convention on human rights (the right to a family life) to secure the right to stay in the UK when otherwise they would have to leave. The document does not explain in detail how the legislation would work, but it says it would “clarify article 8 rules and set out how they should apply in different immigration routes so that fewer cases are treated as ‘exceptional’, and set out when and how a person can genuinely make a claim on the basis of exceptional circumstances”.
The Labour MP Clive Lewis says that could weaken protections for everyone. He has posted these on social media.
Article 8 is a check on state power. A check on authoritarianism.
It’s a right the state can only override if it acts lawfully, necessarily, and proportionately.
Weakening it for migration cases is a Trojan horse – weakening protections for all of us. 1/2
Article 8 is the right UK citizens use to:
– Challenge the state when their children are taken into care
– Stop intrusive surveillance/unlawful data grabs
– Protect their homes from arbitrary searches
– Keep contact with loved ones in prison
– Defend the right to a private and family life
Water it down for “them” today, and it won’t be there for you tomorrow.
The latest edition of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly UK podcast is out. It features Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey talking about the immigration white paper.
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, will be addressing the Commons soon on the immigration white paper. In a good New Statesman column, George Eaton says this has been a personal victory for her. He explains.
Yvette Cooper, however, can claim a far longer pedigree. As allies point out, Cooper has been championing controlled migration for more than a decade (or as one puts it, “before Reform was even a twinkle in Nigel Farage’s eye”). Back in March 2013, as shadow home secretary under Ed Miliband, Cooper used a speech to IPPR to denounce the “free-market liberal approach” which promoted “wide open borders” for the purpose of “flexible, cheap labour” (she also called for stronger English language requirements). Yesterday, now ensconced in the Home Office, she vowed to end the Tories’ “free-market experiment”.
Despite holding one of the great offices of state, Cooper is often overlooked in analyses of Labour. She is not a member of the party’s ascendent Blairite wing – Pat McFadden, Wes Streeting, Peter Kyle, Liz Kendall – nor of its more sceptical soft left (Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband, Lisa Nandy). As an original Brownite, she is one of the last representatives of a mostly forgotten political tribe (the same is true of her Yorkshire ally Defence Secretary John Healey). Having stood for the Labour leadership a decade ago, she has no interest in offering herself as a putative successor to Starmer.
But on immigration, one of this government’s defining political and policy issues, Cooper’s approach has prevailed. The old assumption that economic growth depends on permanently high immigration – often revered by the Treasury – has been discarded.
The measures in the immigration white paper could cost the Treasury £2.5bn in lost revenue over the long term, according to the policy specialist Sam Freedman on Bluesky.
If the OBR accept the white paper’s projection that the measures will lead to a 100k drop in net migration then that will create an additional £2.5 billion hole in the next forecast.
This isn’t the OBR being ideological – just a function of the fact that migrants pay tax and visa fees and in the first five years they’re here don’t use services very much.
If you’re going to have a five year fiscal rule based on GDP it’s an inevitable consequence.
The Labour MP Sarah Owen has said that government is risking “chasing the tail of the right” with its immigration white paper. As PA Media reports, she said:
I am proud of what immigrants like my mum and those across Luton North have given to our country.
The best way to avoid becoming an ‘island of strangers’ is investing in communities to thrive – not pitting people against each other.
I’ve said it before and will say it again: chasing the tail of the right risks taking our country down a very dark path.
Nicola Sturgeon confirms she will vote against Scotland’s assisted dying bill
Severin Carrell
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s former first minister, has confirmed she will vote against a bill to legalise assisted dying in the Scottish parliament tomorrow.
Sturgeon, the first minister from 2014 until she quit unexpectedly in March 2023, posted a statement on Instagram to warn she believed legalisation would put the vulnerable and older terminally ill people under moral or implied pressure to take their lives.
The definition of terminal illness in the bill, which has its stage one vote in Holyrood on Tuesday evening, was also too wide because it did not fix a time limit (the proposals for England and Wales require death to be expected within six months). That meant someone could choose assisted dying prematurely.
She said the bill’s provisions against coercion and its requirements for two doctors to sign agreements that someone had a terminal illness could not prevent “internal coercion” where an ill person felt “others might be better off” if they were not there.
It would risk a situation in which a right to die might become, in the minds of some people, a perceived duty to die.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats, which are sponsoring the bill, believe they have a majority in favour of allowing it to proceed to full evaluation by a committee of MSPs.
Sturgeon’s intervention adds to pressure on wavering MSPs to oppose it after John Swinney, the current first minister, and Humza Yousaf, who served as first minister after she quit, both said they too will vote against the bill.
Police investigating fire at Starmer’s home in north London
The police are investigating a fire at Keir Starmer’s family home in north London, Steven Swinford from the Times reports.
Police are investigating a fire at the prime minister’s North London home in the early hours of this morning
The London Fire Brigade was called after the fire was reported around 1.35am
The front door was damaged but no one was hurt.
The street has been sealed off. Starmer has rented out the house since moving into Downing Street. It has been repeatedly targeted by protestors in the past
Starmer criticised for phrase that echoed Enoch Powell’s ‘strangers in their own country’ claim in Rivers of Blood speech
When Zarah Sultana said that Keir Starmer’s speech this morning echoed Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech (see 2.06pm), it sounded as if she was making a general point.
But Sultana may have had a better memory of the 1968 speech than she let on because Starmer was not just sounding a bit reminiscent of Powell (like Sultana, a West Midlands MP). Starmer was using very similar language. Referring to the impact of immigration on (white) people living in Britain at the time, Powell said:
For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country.
And this morning Starmer said:
Without [fair immigration rules], we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.
Zack Polanski, who is running to be the next Green party leader, has suggested that Starmer was deliberately echoing Powell’s phraseology. He posted this on Bluesky.
Starmer’s Britain
Not even subtle
But it seems unlikely that Starmer (or his speechwriter) would have deliberately decided to reference the Rivers of Blood speech. The Labour party has tolerated a lot from Starmer, but, even for this PLP, lauding the most famous racist speech in British politics would be a step too far. It seems far more likely that this was an unintentional (or at least unconscious) use of the same imagery.
Downing Street is holding a lobby briefing this afternoon. Presumably we will get a line from them on this shortly.
Policy experts have also criticised the proposal in the immigration white paper to reduce the amount of time foreign graduates can stay in the UK after they graduate (the graduate visa) from two years to 18 months.
Karl Williams, research director at the Centre for Policy Studies, a centre-right thinktank, says this won’t make much difference. He said:
The measures proposed fall some way short of those actually required to get migration down to the kind of levels which the public would be happy with.
For example, cutting the time someone can stay in the UK on a graduate visa from 24 months to 18 months will do nothing to address the problem of those using student and graduate visas to access the country with the primary intent to work, not to study, and then switching to other routes to extend their stay.
Steve Peers, a law professor, said on Bluesky this was an idea that the Conservatives had rejected.
White paper: graduate visa post-graduation stay to work to be reduced to 18 months (the previous govt considered this but rejected it…)
And Sam Freedman, who writes the successful Comment is Freed Substack blog, said on Bluesky that this looked like a win for the Department for Education – because a bigger reduction was on the cards.
On universities the white paper only reduces the graduate visa from two years to 18 months (which is a win for the DfE).
Plan to make migrants wait 10 years for earned settlement will prolong their insecurity, charity says
One of the proposals in the immigration white paper that seems most inspired by the Conservative party is the proposal to double the amount of time immigrants have to wait until they can get earned settlement status, which can lead to citizenship. It will go up from five years to 10 years. In February Kemi Badenoch announced a very similar plan, saying immigrants should have to wait 10 years for settled status, and then another five years for citizenship.
The British Futures thinktank says this will make integration harder. (See 11.54am.)
Other experts are saying the same thing. This is from Marley Morris from the IPPR thinktank.
Extending the standard route to settlement to 10 years risks making it harder for people to contribute and settle into their communities. Visa holders will spend lengthy periods on an insecure status, increasing their risk of poverty and losing status altogether. This could inhibit integration while doing little to bring down numbers.
And this is from Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the Work Rights Centre, a charity that worksd with migrants and disadvantaged people.
Placing ILR [indefinite leave to remain] and settlement even further out of reach for many migrants is an arbitrary move that introduces further unfairness into an already hostile system. While the Home Office cashes in on the additional application fees, migrants and their families will remain in a transitory position for an extended period, making the end goal of integration as set out by the prime minister much harder to realise in practice.
More people will be put at risk of falling into insecure immigration status, putting them at greater risk of exploitation, and potentially even increasing the number of people with undocumented status.
Like the CBI (see 12.28pm), the British Chambers of Commerce has expressed concern about the government’s plans to restrict visas for workers. Jane Gratton, the BCC’s deputy director for public policy, said:
To grow the economy, firms need access to the right skills, and for some businesses that will include bringing people from outside the UK. This is usually as a last resort when they have tried all they can to recruit from the local labour market. Our surveys show only 13% of Chamber member businesses access the immigration system. When considering only SMEs, the figure falls to 9%.
The further rise in fees to use what is already a hugely expensive immigration system will place additional burdens on firms who need to fill urgent vacancies. That comes at a time when businesses are already facing mounting cost pressures.
