Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an ‘island of strangers’ today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.

The PM deployed the ‘take back control’ Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the ‘betrayal’ of reliance on cheap foreign labour.

Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed ‘designed to permit abuse’ and was ‘contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart’.

He said he would give Brits what they had ‘asked for time and time again’ and ‘significantly’ reduce eye-watering immigration that has been inflicting ‘incalculable damage’. The Home Office estimates the government’s package will bring down annual inflows by around 100,000.

In a pivotal moment, he also rejected the Treasury orthodoxy that high immigration drives growth — pointing out the economy has stagnated in recent years.

Under the blueprint, skills thresholds will be hiked and rules on fluency in English toughened.

Migrants will also be required to wait 10 years for citizenship rather than the current five, and face deportation for even lower-level crimes.

Graduate visas will be reduced to 18 months, and a new levy introduced on income that universities generate from international students.

Requirements that sponsoring institutions must meet in order to recruit international students are also being tightened.

However, doubts have been raised about whether the White Paper proposals will have a big enough impact — as it does not include any targets or the hard annual cap being demanded by critics.

Nigel Farage accused the premier of being ‘insincere’ and insisted he does not have the commitment to follow through.

Sir Keir was also facing a backlash from his own side — with Labour MPs swiping that he was ‘chasing the tail of the Right’.

Zarah Sultana — currently suspended from the Labour benches — said: ‘The Prime Minister imitating Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech is sickening.

Wiki on Zarah Sultana: Born to a Muslim family of Pakistani ancestry 

‘That speech fuelled decades of racism and division. Echoing it today is a disgrace. It adds to anti-migrant rhetoric that puts lives at risk. Shame on you, Keir Starmer.’

And as the PM was speaking about ‘proper control and management’ of UK borders another load of Channel boat arrivals were being brought ashore in Dover.

Keir Starmer pledged to end the ‘betrayal’ of Britain’s reliance on cheap foreign labour, hiking skills thresholds and toughening rules on fluency in English

 

The PM insisted the government would be ‘investing in British workers’

As the PM was speaking about ‘proper control and management’ of UK borders another load of Channel boat arrivals were being brought ashore in Dover

Sir Keir underlined his determination that the changes will mean ‘migration numbers fall’ but added: ‘If we do need to take further steps… then mark my words we will.’

He refused to guarantee that net migration will fall every year from now, saying: ‘I do want to get it down by the end of this Parliament significantly.’

The premier said: ‘Let me put it this way, nations depend on rules, fair rules.

PM’s ‘Starmer Sutra’ of positions on migration

Keir Starmer‘s attempt to clamp down on mass immigration today marked the culmination of a major journey for the one-time ‘lefty’ lawyer who championed EU freedom of movement and closing migrant detention centres.

The Prime Minister today warned the UK risks becoming an ‘island of strangers’ without controls on immigration as he unveiled a crackdown including plans to cut overseas care workers and tighten English language requirements.

In a Downing Street speech, Sir Keir said the Labour Government will ‘take back control of our borders’ and close the book on a ‘squalid chapter’ for politics and the economy.

He spoke as Labour feels pressure from Nigel Farage‘s Reform on the hard right of politics.

But it comes just five years after he campaigned for the Labour leadership vowing to ‘defend migrants’ rights’.

As he sought to see off leftwing challenger Rebecca Long-Bailey and replace Jeremy Corbyn he produced a 10-point manifesto including ‘defending freedom of movement’ and softer treatment of illegal immigrants.

But after winning the leadership he began his long journey towards a harder line on immigration, sparking fury among his former allies on the left.

Prior to that, as Mr Corbyn’s shadow immigration minister and shadow Brexit secretary, he led an insurgent campaign in favour of a second referendum to stay in the EU, which was in the party’s 2019 election manifesto.

‘Sometimes they’re written down, often they’re not, but either way, they give shape to our values, guide us towards our rights, of course, but also our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to each other.

‘Now in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more important.

‘Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.’

The announcement comes less than a fortnight after Reform UK rode a wave of rising public anger on immigration to triumph in the local elections, delivering a string of damaging defeats to Labour.

Home Office aides are said to fear that without deep-rooted reforms, annual net migration will settle even higher than the 340,000 level projected by the Office for National Statistics.

There are concerns it will end up closer to 525,000 by 2028 – when the country will be preparing for a general election – because migrants are staying for longer than previously thought. The rate stood at 728,000 in the year to June last year.

However, the Treasury has been resisting the most dramatic steps for fear of further damaging the ailing economy.

Sir Keir promised the plan ‘will finally take back control of our borders and close the book on a squalid chapter for our politics, our economy and our country’.

He added: ‘Take back control.’ Everyone knows that slogan, and everyone knows what it meant on immigration, or at least that’s what people thought.

‘Because what followed from the previous government, starting with the people who used that slogan, was the complete opposite.

‘Between 2019 and 2023, even as they were going round our country, telling people with a straight face that they would get immigration down, net migration quadrupled, until in 2023 it reached nearly one million.

‘That’s about the population of Birmingham, our second largest city. That’s not control. It’s chaos.’

Sir Keir said the country had been suffering under a ‘system that encourages businesses to bring in lower-paid workers, rather than invest in our young people’.

‘That is the Britain this broken system has created. Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control. Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall,’ he said.

‘This is a clean break from the past and will ensure settlement in this country is a privilege that must be earned, not a right.

‘And when people come to our country, they should also commit to integration and to learning our language. Lower net migration, higher skills and backing British workers – that is what this White Paper will deliver.’

Sir Keir said the problems risked making Britain ‘an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together’.

The Home Office estimates that the package will bring down annual inflows by around 100,000

The Home Office assessment highlighted the lack of English among low-skilled migrants, and the surge in immigrant workers in health and social care

Kemi Badenoch insisted that Labour ‘doesn’t believe in secure borders’

Nigel Farage said the government ‘will not do what it takes to control our borders’

He said: ‘So when you have an immigration system that seems almost designed to permit abuse, that encourages some businesses to bring in lower paid workers rather than invest in our young people, or simply one that is sold by politicians to the British people on an entirely false premise, then you are not championing growth.

‘You are not championing justice or however else people defend the status quo. You’re actually contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart.’

In a foreword to the White Paper, Sir Keir wrote that the Tories had attempted a ‘one-nation experiment in open borders’.

‘The damage this has done to our country is incalculable,’ he said.

‘Public services and housing access have been placed under too much pressure. Our economy has been distorted by perverse incentives to import workers rather than invest in our own skills.

‘In sectors like engineering, for example, apprenticeships have almost halved while visas doubled.’

However, critics said the plans were nothing new and questioned Labour’s appetite to implement them.

Labour MP Sarah Owen, chair of the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, said in a post on the Bluesky social media platform: ‘I am proud of what immigrants like my mum and those across Luton North have given to our country. Many serve in our NHS, open biz, enrich culture/arts & much more.

‘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.

‘Fair & sensible checks on immigration should not equal blaming all the woes of our country on immigrants, rather than the failures of those in power for the last 14 years.’

Under the proposals, migrants will be required to spend a decade in the UK before they can apply for citizenship and will need to have a good grasp of English.

The White Paper will also attempt to end the scandal of failed asylum seekers and foreign criminals using human rights laws to block deportation.

Ministers are expected to change the law to constrain judges’ interpretation of elements of the European Convention on Human Rights.

They will target Article 8, which protects the right to a family life and is often used by lawyers to block removal on spurious reasoning.

However, ministers faced a backlash from the care sector yesterday, with a warning of possible collapse, after Ms Cooper said she would ban recruiting from overseas, while demanding companies train British workers.

Ms Cooper said the dedicated care worker visa will be ended, insisting firms can no longer rely on ‘recruiting from abroad’.

The main parties are responding to the surge by Nigel Farage’s (pictured) Reform

Sir Keir promised the plan ‘will finally take back control of our borders and close the book on a squalid chapter for our politics, our economy and our country’

That measure together with returning the skills thresholds for work visas to degree level will cut visa numbers by 50,000 a year, she suggested.

Employers will be encouraged to ‘develop domestic training plans to boost British skills and recruitment levels’ instead.

Alongside legal migration, the government is also facing a massive challenge on Channel boats.

More than 11,500 people have made the perilous crossing this year – a record level.

The number of people claiming asylum climbed from 91,811 in 2023 to a new high of 108,138 last year.

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.

Hate Crime Hoax Could Be Constitutionally Unprotected True Threat

By Eugene Volokh

 Photo from the indictment.

From today’s decision by Judge Regina M. Rodriguez (D. Colo.) in U.S. v. Bernard:

Colorado Springs, Colorado, held an election for mayor …. CANDIDATE 1 [Yemi Mobolade -EV] is black and CANDIDATE 2 [Wayne W. Williams -EV] is white…. Defendants supported CANDIDATE 1. The Indictment alleges that the Defendants devised a plan to help CANDIDATE 1 win the runoff election. In the early morning hours [three weeks before the election], the Defendants defaced a political sign with CANDIDATE 1’s name on it by using red spray paint to write the N-word on it. The Defendants then staged a burning cross in front of the sign and videotaped it.

Later that same day, the Defendants created a fake email account, posing as a concerned citizen, and sent the video, along with an email referring to hate crimes, to media outlets and CANDIDATE 1’s campaign. {The email described what was depicted in the video—”To my surprise and disgust it was a cross on fire in front of running candidate’s sign for Mayor. Looking past the flames I see it’s Yemi Mobalade’s sign with the word sprayed painted across in red ‘NIGGER’!” The email also included language regarding hate-crime tactics used to harass and intimidate candidates and voters in elections.} According to Defendant Bernard, Defendants’ actions were “specifically designed to generate voter outrage and support for a candidate” they actively backed….

Defendants were charged with conspiracy and with “using instrumentalities of interstate commerce to maliciously convey false information to intimidate someone by means of fire,” and the court rejected defendants’ motion to dismiss the charge:

For the government to succeed on [the intimidation] charge, it must prove that the communication in question was a true threat lying outside of First Amendment protection…. “The ‘true’ in [the term ‘true threat’] distinguishes what is at issue from jests, ‘[political] hyperbole,’ or other statements that when taken in context do not convey a real possibility that violence will follow (say, ‘I am going to kill you for showing up late’).” True threats instead “encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” [A true threat] “subject[s] individuals to ‘fear of violence’ and to the many kinds of ‘disruption that fear engenders.'” … [T]he mens rea required to prove a true threat is recklessness, meaning that “a speaker is aware that others could regard his statements as threatening violence and delivers them anyway.” …

Defendants argue that they did not intend to threaten CANDIDATE 1 but instead intended to support his campaign. Defendant Bernard argues that “the distribution of the video actively disavowed and condemned the cross burning: (1) Expressed outrage at the act; (2) Blamed political opponents; (3) Urged support for Candidate 1; and (4) sought to mobilize voters” and therefore the context of the communication was “political theater.” … [But t]he reference to hate crimes in the email indicates that the Defendants were aware that others who saw the video of the burning cross in front of the defaced political sign would, or should, view it as a threat or intimidation to CANDIDATE 1 and/or his supporters. It’s not clear that others who saw the video understood the context that was intended…. CANDIDATE 1 may testify at trial as to what the Defendants’ communication conveyed to him. A reasonable jury could find that Defendants meant their communication not as “political hyperbole” or “political theater” but rather as statements “convey[ing] a real possibility that violence will follow.”

In sum, the Court finds that this is not a case where the statements made by the Defendants were so clearly protected by the First Amendment that the Court can hold, as a matter of law, that they did not constitute a true threat. Instead, the Court finds that “whether a defendant’s statement is a true threat or mere political speech is a question for the jury.” Considering all of the relevant factors, the Court has little difficulty concluding that a reasonable juror could find that the Defendants’ comments were a true threat….