Keir Starmer ‘island of strangers’ speech: ‘Labour believes people were ready to hear this’
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Keir Starmer’s use of right-wing rhetoric to speak about migrants has been compared to Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘rivers of blood’ speech, prompting backlash from the left-wing of the Labour Party. Do these words resonate with the British public – or just make life harder for migrants?
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In brief…
- Keir Starmer has been accused of echoing racist language of 1960s Tory politician Enoch Powell by members of his own party, who have criticised how the PM delivered details of the government’s new plan to reduce legal migration into the UK.
- Lord Alfred Dubs, who lived through Powell’s time as a member of the shadow government, says he doesn’t believe Starmer believes what he said.
- The News Agents say the government believes Starmer said "something the British public were ready to hear".
What’s the story?
Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has had quite the change of heart when it comes to migrants entering the UK.
"We welcome migrants, we don't scapegoat them," he said in 2020 while campaigning to become the leader of the Labour Party.
"Low wages, poor housing – poor public services are not the fault of migrants and people who've come here. They're political failure," Starmer added at the time.
"So we have to make the case for the benefits of migration."
This week, Starmer said migration levels risked turning the UK into an "island of strangers", that the government would "take back control" of the UK's borders, and that the "one-nation experiment" was "over".
His speech has been compared by some to Enoch Powell's 1968 speech, in which he said criminalising refusing housing, work or public services from anyone because of their ethnic origin would result in British rivers "foaming with much blood".
Lewis Goodall describes Powell as a figure who “occasionally pops up and haunts British politics” – who now Starmer and the Labour government must try to exorcise.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper has said the speeches are "totally different" and defended Starmer's word's.
His words have drawn fierce criticism from what remains of the left-wing Labour MPs, some of whom remain suspended from the party for supporting the end of the two-child benefit cap.
Nadia Whittome called Starmer's words "shameful and dangerous", saying the real culprits are " landlordism, chronic underinvestment and deepening inequality," in the UK.
Apsana Begum described Starmer's "island of strangers" line as "a leaf out of the far-right’s playbook."
Diane Abbott said Starmer's chance of stance highlighted a "shameful day in British politics and a shameful day for the Labour party."
Lord Dubs: "I'm unhappy senior politicians are using language reminiscent of Enoch Powell"
Will Starmer’s comments make life harder for migrants in the UK?
Lord Alfred Dubs fled the Nazis in Prague in 1939 aged six, later becoming an MP and eventually a member of the House of Lords.
He tells The News Agents that Starmer’s words remind him of Powell's works from 1968, having lived through the Ted Heath-led Tory government of the time.
"I remember the Powell speech, I remember the shock that we all felt, the idea that a senior politician would actually use such language which denigrates minority people in this country," Lord Dubs says.
He says he is "sorry" Starmer used the language he did, mostly because he doesn't believe the Prime Minister stands by those words.
Lord Dubs adds he fears that discussion surrounding Starmer's language could overshadow the details of Labour's white paper, saying he believes there are "important things" in the proposals that could improve the UK's migration system.
"I don't want those to be lost because of a debate about one particular phrase that Starmer used," he says.
But his main concern is how, in echoing Powell's rhetoric, Starmer could make life even harder for migrants in the UK, and misrepresent the true sentiment of British people.
"It encourages local communities not to be welcoming to strangers, not to be welcoming to newcomers, not to be welcome to people who have arrived here," Lord Dubs says.
"Local communities in Britain tend to be very supportive, particularly of asylum seekers.
"They tend to be helpful, they tend to want to make sure that they take part in local activities and that's the society we want to be – even if the total numbers are a bit high."
Should Keir Starmer be 'more careful' with the language he uses on migrants?
What’s The News Agents’ take?
Lewis says that hearing politicians edge closer to the sentiments of politicians from the 1960s has become more common in recent years, with evidence of a global lurch to the right in recent years.
"Powell’s argument was basically one which actually we would be very familiar with today, because it's an argument that mainstream Conservative politicians make quite regularly," says Lewis.
The difference this time around is that the language is coming from – not only the leader of a party which has traditionally been considered left wing – but from a man who has spoken openly and publicly about the benefits of migration.
"Now the Labour Party and Keir Starmer have started to make the same argument as well, which is simply that the UK cannot ever truly assimilate a good proportion of the people who are coming, that they will never be truly British – partly because of the numbers, partly simply because of their culture and partly because of who they are."
The people Powell was speaking about in the late sixties was the group we refer to now as the Windrush Generation, and were arriving in the UK from Commonwealth countries.
Emily Maitlis says that at the time of Powell’s speech, a large majority of the British public agreed with his sentiment.
"This is what brings us back to essentially where we are today, and the acceptability of both policies and language," she says.
"Has something massively shifted recently, or has the British public always been in a slightly different place to their politicians on what they felt able to say?"
Emily says Starmer will never support Enoch Powell, but believes there will be voices around the PM telling him to "hold his nerve" because the government believes he said "something the British public were ready to hear".
She adds that Reform UK polling, showing the right-wing party ahead of mainstream rivals across many parts of the UK, will have convinced some people in politics that what the public wants is someone who is “pretty hard line on what is happening to our country.”
"What he doesn't do in any of what he said yesterday is talk about the benefits that having more migration into the country has, and that is something that most economists agree on," she says.
"We could not function very well, we could not grow our economy very well, without those people helping us out."
Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.
