Labour, Fearing Backlash on Immigration, Talks Tough on Immigration. Does Nothing.

Matt Goodwin: Keir Starmer goes big on immigration. And why it won’t change anything at all

After Brexit, immigration is quickly becoming the main fault line in the country, separating the forgotten majority that strongly favours restrictions and reductions from the elite minority that only really want to tinker with the status-quo.

It is also reshaping political battle lines. Only last week, because of people’s intense and legitimate concerns about this issue, Nigel Farage and Reform were powered to a stunning victory at the local elections.

And inside the Labour Party, as even Labour MPs tell me, there is now an acceptance that unless they get serious about this issue many more of their traditional heartlands, from north-east England to Wales, could soon fall to Reform.

Which is why, today, Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper will rush around Westminster trying to look like they are doing something about immigration.

There will be a new white paper. There will be a string of new policy changes. And there will, inevitably, be endless talk about ministers taking “bold action”, making “tough decisions”, “getting a grip”, and “regaining control”.

Only, in the end, there will be no such thing. All we will get today, I predict, will be more hot air. There will be talk about trying to bring in fewer low-skilled workers for social care. There will be something about raising the educational requirements for a skilled worker visa. There will be talk about the importance of migrants speaking language. There will be talk about encouraging companies to invest in hiring British workers (while giving them real incentives to hire Indians). Keir Starmer will also mention about slashing 50,000 visas, which sounds big but is only 6% of the latest total. And there will be discussion about trying to better monitor who is coming in and out of Britain.

But that will be it. A little bit of tinkering around the edges here and there. A few minor changes. Nothing more.

There will be no fundamental change to the system. There will be no end to the policy of mass uncontrolled immigration. There will be no cap on the number of migrants. There will be no overhaul of a system that has been failing this country for years. And there will be no end to the status-quo.

All there will be, instead, is just more gaslighting, obfuscating, disillusionment and distrust. More people briefly tuning in to the news and then immediately tuning out because all they will see are the same politicians, the same political parties, who have let them down for years gaslighting them once again —promising change only to deliver more of the same.

And if you want a sense of why they are right to think and feel this way then just look, for example, at three things we have have learned in recent days about this issue, all of which reflect how absurd, outrageous, and unfair the entire system has become —and none of which will be addressed by Labour’s announcements today.

Firstly, for a start, we learn that contrary to what the vast majority of hardworking people in this country want, officials in the Home Office are now working on the assumption that the overall annual rate of net migration into Britain will settle at around the 525,000 mark for the foreseeable future —yes, 525,000. While Keir Starmer today will talk about the need “to bring the numbers down”, government officials are openly acknowledging that the key number will now remain nearly 200,000 higher than it was at the time of the Brexit vote, when politicians similarly promised to “lower the overall numbers”.

And why the higher figure? Because the so-called expert class —the same ones who told us only a few thousand people would migrate from Europe in 2004— have only just cottoned on to the fact, visible in the data for some time, that migrants from the likes of Afghanistan, Syria, and Nigeria are staying in Britain for a longer period than was previously thought. Huh —who would have thought?

None of this should surprise you. For decades, politicians on both the Left and Right, alongside the civil service and the expert class, have not only over-promised only to under-deliver, but also routinely got their estimates wildly wrong.

Almost every major forecast of immigration numbers in the last twenty years has gone on to be revised upwards because the number-crunchers who like to lecture everybody else about the importance of deferring to experts got it wrong.

So now, in a remarkable turn of events that will shock absolutely nobody, those at the very heart of this system are openly admitting that the era of mass uncontrolled immigration is here to stay —no matter what the tax-paying, voting and democratic citizens of these islands want to see and no matter what Keir Starmer says today.

Second, in recent days we also learned that one of the core arguments for this demographic and cultural change —that “it’s good for the economy”—is falling apart, so much so that even people in government are questioning it. Here’s what …

… The Times reported over the weekend:

“Officials believe that as well as underestimating the levels of long-term immigration to the UK, government forecasts are also overstating its economic benefits”.

That’s right. People at the very centre of the system, in Number 10 Downing Street, are now slowly realising what has been known to the readers of this Substack for a very long time —that the very kind of low-skill, low-wage, non-European immigration that our hapless leaders have reshaped our country around is the least likely of all to drive economic prosperity.

We were one of the first to push this point, a few years ago, drawing on reliable and rigorous research by respected academics in other European nations, which was then, eventually, joined by studies here in Britain that likewise concluded the model of mass immigration we have is taking more out of the economy than it’s putting in. And now, in yet another intervention that will not surprise our readers, The Times notes:

“There is growing concern in government, shared by Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff, that the benefit of immigration is being overstated because the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) does not take into account the additional strain on public infrastructure and services in its official forecasts. These play a vital role in government tax and spending decisions because they inform the size of the Treasury’s fiscal headroom.”

Even the expert class, the piece goes on to note, is now warning government that official forecasts are only taking into account the first few years or so of a migrant’s life in the country, which completely ignores the welfare benefits they will start to withdraw from the system after five years and the pressure they put on public services, like the National Health Service, as they get older. These very obvious things, we are told, are now only being considered by the number-crunchers in government.

So why is Keir Starmer not doing anything serious about this? Why is he not going much further in ending mass low-skill migration? Why is he not setting a cap on net migration and making this accountable to the British people? Why is he not dramatically extending or ending the policy of Indefinite Leave to Remain, which will impose enormous costs on taxpayers? Why is he claiming to be on the side of British workers while literally giving tax exemptions to foreign workers? And why is he just not being honest?

And then, third, as if all that isn’t enough, in recent days we’ve also learned about the simply eye-watering financial costs that are being imposed on British taxpayers because of this mad experiment and the failure to control our borders.

Shockingly, according to a new report from the National Audit Office last week, the costs of providing housing and accommodation for illegal migrants and asylum-seekers, which was initially estimated to be £4.5 billion, is now estimated to be … £15.3 billion. More than three times as much. Yes, you read that right.

Over the next decade, amid the worst cost-of-living crisis since the Second World War, the British taxpayer will have to pay £15.3 billion —equivalent to fifteen new hospitals— to cover the cost of hotels and accommodation for people who are often breaking our laws, many of whom should not be in the country to begin with.

And as if THAT isn’t bad enough, over the last two days we also learned that the people enjoying this housing, at the taxpayers’ expense, include an Iranian terrorist who was just arrested for planning to attack Israel’s Embassy, and the First Lady of Sierra Leone, who has an extensive property portfolio in Africa.

British people are literally having to wait in line for social housing that has instead gone to terrorists and affluent African politicians. You could not make it up.

So, look, if Keir Starmer was serious about getting his arms around the immigration crisis in this country then these are the things he would be addressing today—not tinkering around the edges but dramatically slashing the overall rate of net migration, accepting that mass migration is not delivering the economic growth people were promised, completely overhauling our social housing policy so that British taxpayers and citizens, not terrorists, are put first in line, and finally admitting to the country that this extreme experiment has failed on all fronts. But instead, what we will get from Keir Starmer today, is anything and everything except dealing with the actual, underlying issue.

And this, more than anything, is not only why his party’s heartlands are about to fall to Nigel Farage but why people are now rejecting the entire system that presided over this mess, too.