Starmer’s ‘hardcore’ new immigration policy: ‘It doesn’t sound like Labour’
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Keir Starmer has echoed right-wing “take back control” rhetoric in a speech announcing Labour’s new plans to reduce the number of legal migrants entering the UK.
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In brief…
- Keir Starmer has said the “one-nation experiment” is “over”, in a speech detailing a crackdown on legal migrants entering the UK, reducing the number of overseas care workers and doubling the length of time before people from overseas can apply for permanent citizenship.
- Starmer’s tough language sounds more like something you would expect from Reform UK than from a Labour government, The News Agents say, noting that Starmer has calculated he needs to appeal to voters lost to Reform.
- The News Agents say the care home sector will suffer as a result of the changes, with willing migrant workers no longer able to take up the roles and British workers not wanting to because of poor pay and the work being seen as ‘unskilled’.
What’s the story?
"We will take back control of our borders." "The experiment is over."
No, there aren't the words of Nigel Farage, Richard Tice or any other member of Reform UK, but from Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a man who once spoke about the benefits of migration and campaigned to lead the party with promises of a return to free movement in the EU.
Starmer delivered a speech on the morning of 12 May, announcing the government's new plans to cut immigration, make it much harder for people from overseas to settle in the UK and cut the recruitment of care workers from outside the country, who work for minimum wage looking after some of the most in-need groups in society.
His speech outlined Labour's intention to reduce the number of people entering the UK legally, but did not address the number of people entering on small boats or other means. There will now be stricter tests on migrants' English language, and applications for permanent residency will only be accepted after ten years in the country, up from five.
Starmer used the speech to address the previous Tory government's use of the same "take back control" slogan he used in his speech, claiming that allowing net-migration numbers to more than 900,000 in 2023 was "a choice".
He also said the high numbers of people arriving in the UK threatened to turn the country into an “island of strangers”.
When grilled by journalists after his announcement, he denied claims that Labour's tough new stance was due to the rise in Reform UK, anti-immigrant sentiment in parts of the country and significant losses made in recent local elections by the leading parties.
"I’m doing this because it is right, because it is fair and because it is what I believe in," he told reporters.
'If I had elderly parents going into a care home, I'd be terrifed'
What’s The News Agents’ take?
The language Keir Starmer used in his speech “jumps off the page at you”, Emily Maitlis says.
“These tough restrictions are a very different tone to any Labour Prime Minister I can remember hearing from.”
She believes it’s not a coincidence the tough stance on immigration comes days after Reform made gains in the local elections, noting that even Richard Tice approved of the PM’s wanting to ‘take back control’.
“If you've got Richard Tice speaking approvingly of what you're saying, you're going to upset an awful lot of Labour MPs along the way who think this is some kind of betrayal of Labour's core values,” Jon Sopel says.
But Starmer might “enjoy” being condemned by MPs on the left of the Labour party, Jon adds, noting that Tony Blair received similar criticism and used it to his advantage.
“It helped him to make his argument that this was a change. And I think that Starmer is trying to signal that the Labour government is going to be really tough on some of these issues now.”
But Emily still questions whether the language he used had to be “so hardcore,” using phrases such as ‘ending an experiment’, when he could have said ‘we need to have these controls, and we need to recognise the contribution of migration’.
“I have to say, I hear somebody at his back - probably Morgan McSweeney - saying; ‘go out there and be very hard line on immigration, go out there and sound more like Farage’.
“Whether Keir Starmer believes the stuff he's saying, I don't know, but he does believe that if he doesn't say it, he's going to lose the next election.”
“The basic calculation is there are no votes to be lost in sounding tough on immigration right now,” Jon adds.
While Starmer has taken a tough stance on filling roles such as care home workers with British staff, the practicalities of how Labour’s plan will pan out are yet to be seen.
“The idea that this is just a simple thing saying, ‘right, we're going to turn off the tap, and British people will fill those jobs’ - well, good luck with that,” Jon says.
Emily says she would be “terrified” if she had elderly parents going into a care home right now as the decision will leave a “black hole” in the care home sector, with immigrants no longer able to take up roles and British people not wanting them.
“Do we want more of our jobs to be homegrown? Of course, you do,” Emily says.
“But to start getting those results you have to stop treating care work as if it was filling up popcorn in a cinema. It shouldn't be seen as unskilled. It shouldn't be seen as unimportant. It should be seen as actually deeply important work that provides help for the most vulnerable people in society.
“So if you want to get people at home to do it, you have to pay more. We know that you also have to actually treat it as a skill that people aspire to have.”
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