"Island of strangers" wasn't the only diabolical part of Starmer's speech

Keir Starmer has taken a lot of criticism over his Enoch Powell style "nation of strangers" rhetoric, but this wasn't the only diabolical part of his divisive immigration white paper speech

Keir Starmer’s ever-dwindling band of defenders have tried to insist that criticism of his anti-immigrant speech on Monday is unfair, as if his Enoch Powell style "island of strangers" rhetoric was somehow taken out of context.

In reality there’s plenty more to be concerned about.

Let’s deal with Starmer’s "island of strangers" rhetoric first though.

It’s undeniably similar to the rhetoric that Powell used in the notorious "rivers of blood" speech that got him kicked out of the Tory party.

There are only two potential explanations.

Either Starmer and his speechwriters included the phrase in ignorance of the historical use of such language by one of Britain’s most notorious extreme-right agitators, or they knew what they were doing, and intended it as a dog whistle to the extreme-right.

Given the proven litany of lies we’ve already seen from Starmer and his inner circle, it’s difficult to accept anything they say at face value, but for the sake of argument let’s assume good faith, and allow the excuse that they included similar rhetoric to the most famous anti-immigration speech in British history out of ignorance, rather than malice.

Earlier in the speech Starmer isn’t actually wrong when he pointed out the dangerous hypocrisy of the Tories, who pandered to the extreme-right with endless rhetoric like "take back control", "securing our borders", and "stop the boats", whilst simultaneously allowing the largest increase in net migration ever, in the years after the Brexit referendum.

It’s stupid and incredibly dangerous to legitimise the extreme-right with anti-immigrant rhetoric, whilst simultaneously relying on mass migration to mitigate the damaging effects of austerity ruination and the debilitating Brexit economic sanctions we imposed on ourselves.

If it wasn’t for the large scale of immigration that has continued since 2016, the UK economy wouldn’t have just been flatlining, it would have been stuck in recession for most of the time.

The Tories used the increased economic activity of millions of working immigrants to hide the fact that Britain is getting poorer, and nothing substantial has changed since Starmer took power last year.

Rachel Reeves has continued with the economically illiterate Tory agenda of austerity, social security vandalism, and chronic under-investment in infrastructure and public services; nothing is being done to cure Britain of it’s debilitating infestation of greedy privatisation profiteers; there’s no substantial reform of Britain’s dysfunctional housing market; and Starmer made it absolutely clear in this specific speech that he has no intention whatever to undo, or even mitigate the Brexit economic sanctions we imposed on ourselves.

Starmer’s Labour is just as reliant on large-scale immigration to create the illusion of economic growth as the Tories were before them, because they’re intent on pursuing the same damaging and economically illiterate ideological agenda.

And despite acknowledging that the Tories "told the country one thing while doing another", there’s no way that Labour can create the growth they keep banging on about without either rapidly abandoning their efforts to continue the Tory austerity agenda, or relying on large-scale immigration to create the illusion of growth, just like the Tories did.

In his speech Starmer blamed immigration for "pressure on housing and our public services" and "downward pressure on wages", which is exactly the kind of immigration scapegoating he criticised the Tory government for when he was in opposition.

It was an ugly, sinister tactic when the Tories did it, and it’s no less diabolical now that Labour are using the same immigrant scapegoating tactics to cover for their refusal to substantially reform Britain’s broken housing market; restore funding for public services and local governments to pre-austerity levels; and while a Labour council is very publicly crushing the wages of Birmingham refuse workers.

Starmer also described immigration as one of the "forces that are slowly pulling our country apart" and uncritically regurgitated the Tory rhetoric of "take back control of our borders".

It’s blatant pandering to the extreme-right, and it dangerously legitimises their kind of rhetoric.

Perhaps the most egregious part of Starmer’s speech was the part where he said "people who like politics will try to make this all about politics, about this or that strategy, targeting these voters, responding to that party. No. I am doing this because it is right, because it is fair, and because it is what I believe in".

Does he really expect people to be so gullible that they’ll see a Labour Prime Minister pushing all of the right-wing anti-immigration buttons just a few days after Reform took control of ten councils, and blithely accept his word that the two things are entirely unrelated?

And does he really expect people to uncritically accept that he thinks this kind of immigrant-scapegoating is "right", and "fair", and something he "believes in" now, when he said that he believed the exact opposite during the Labour leadership election in 2020?

Labour campaigners in the recent elections have repeatedly stated that the issue that came up time and again on the doorstep wasn’t immigration, it was Labour’s economic attacks on pensioners and disabled people.

The polling evidence suggests that the vast majority of the Labour support that is being lost is being lost to the Green Party and the Lib-Dems, not to the right-wing immigrant-scapegoating politics of Reform and the Tories.

It’s not just morally wrong to smash the immigrant-scapegoating button and (intentionally or unintentionally) channel Enoch Powell, it’s politically stupid too.

The kind of people who have voted Labour in the past, and who would potentially vote Labour again, are the ones who want to see an end to austerity ruination; reinvestment in our failing public services and creaking national infrastructure; and humane treatment of elderly people, disabled people, and families.

Starmer and Reeves are intent on delivering policies that their traditional voters absolutely hate, whilst ramping up the immigrant-scapegoating to provide cover for their deeply unpopular "more of the same" agenda, and to pander to people who would never vote Labour anyway.

The Starmer of 2020 was right when he said it was wrong to scapegoat immigrants for political failings, but it’s obvious that he was only saying that in order to dupe the Labour membership into voting him in as leader.

Now that he’s got the power that he craved, he’s intent on delivering more of the exact same "political failings" as his Tory predecessors, and hammering away at the immigrant-scapegoating button in a desperate attempt to reverse his deepening unpopularity.

It’s actually of little consequence whether Starmer and his speechwriters channelled Enoch Powell on purpose, or out of ignorance. The bigger issue is that he’s once again outed himself as an entirely unprincipled liar who absolutely cannot be trusted by anyone.