Aping Reform on immigration will not solve Labour's identity crisis

“Yeah,” said Keir Starmer, “Nigel Farage is right. Just vote Reform next time. To be honest, if Nige does become PM at the next election, he’ll be doing me a favour. This job is nothing but trouble.”

I mean, he didn’t say it say it, but he definitely said it. What else was he doing – the first Labour prime minister in 14 years – when he said immigration was causing “chaos” and risked turning the UK into “an island of strangers”?

Although that phrase was odd in itself – is it just the mainland that’s in the UK? Have we cast Arran adrift? Are the Hebrides independent? Has he got news in store for Northern Ireland?

But anyway, an island of strangers nonetheless, and one where overseas recruitment for adult social care is to end. “We do have to ask why parts of our economy seem almost addicted to importing cheap labour rather than investing in the skills of people who are here and want a good job in their community,” said Starmer. 

I’d thought the care workers who looked after my gran – African, all of them – had been carrying out vital work in a sector facing significant recruitment problems in a society with a rapidly ageing population. Now I see that their efforts in helping a proud woman continue to live in her own home were part of a job-theft conspiracy wrought by their managers. Don’t I feel like a fool.

The Scottish care home bosses warning that the changes could lead to closures, make bed blocking worse and exacerbate NHS waiting lists? Charlatans, the lot of them – if you don’t believe it, just listen to Keir. “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,” he said, then “you’re actually contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart.” 

Localised riots targeted immigrants and asylum seekers in English towns. Have these now been forgotten?

“We will deliver what you have asked for – time and again – and we will take back control of our borders,” the PM proclaimed, revisiting Vote Leave’s key slogan and insisting this is what he believes in.

How the needle has shifted since 2020, when then-shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said he would argue for the reintroduction of EU free movement after Brexit if he became Labour leader. “We need to make the wider case on immigration,” he said in a speech at Westminster Cathedral Hall back then. “We welcome migrants, we don’t scapegoat them. Low wages, poor housing, poor public services are not the fault of people who come here – they’re political failure. So, we have to make the case for the benefits of migration, for the benefits of free movement.”

So what has changed? Starmer has denied he is “targeting these voters [or] responding to that party”. But it’s hard not to view the speech, delivered a fortnight after the English local elections, as something of a response to Reform. The upstart operation led by arch-Brexiteer Farage – a man who has made cracking down on immigration part of his brand – won 677 seats as the Conservatives shed 674. The Tory collapse may have been a bigger story, but it was striking to see the party of government lose big too, dropping 187 seats and being pushed into fourth place. 

To be fair to Starmer, a former advocate for a ‘people’s vote’ second EU referendum, it has been almost three years since, as PM-in-waiting, he dropped his support for rejoining the bloc and signing up to freedom of movement. Perhaps then it is wrong to view his immigration crackdown as the cynical ploy of a flailing administration which has been unable, despite a whopping parliamentary majority, to engender a sense of stability, or to build public support. 

This is, it must be remembered, a government elected on the lowest turnout in nearly 25 years and with a vote share of just 33.7 per cent. That’s lower than the percentage of people (40.1 per cent) who did not vote at all.

Motivating this cohort to rejoin the democratic process should be of concern to all parties. That starts with giving them something, someone worth voting for.

So is Starmer on to something here? Maybe this is what the people want. Maybe scapegoating and staff shortages are what the public is after. 

Maybe Labour should just hand the keys to Downing Street to Farage now and save us all a bit of time. 

What does Labour stand for under Starmer? It is increasingly difficult to say.

But reading between the lines, the party is suffering from an identity crisis. Aping Reform on migration will do nothing to restore its sense of self.