This is Starmer's foreword to the White Paper on migration, published yesterday:
The key section is:
In 2023, under the previous government, inward migration exploded to over a million people a year – four times the level compared with 2019. This was a political choice that was never put before the British people. In fact, quite the opposite – the previous government repeatedly promised inward migration would be brought under control. Instead, Britain became a one-nation experiment in open borders.
The damage this has done to our country is incalculable. 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.
Am I right to say that he says the damage done to our country by immigration is incalculable, as I did yesterday, when others suggest that his suggestion is that it was Tory policy that did the incalculable damage?
Of course I am. The suggestion being put forward is that allowing immigration caused incalculable damage. It is being claimed as a result that the blame is technically being put on the Tories, and somehow this does not mean that migration itself is not to blame for the supposedly incaulable damage.
That is a false argument. It is being put forward by those using the “I'm not a racist, but the Tories allowing all these migrants in caused incalculable damage” excuse for prejudice.
It is not possible, as those promoting this argument claim, to differentiate the supposed damage from migration policy from migration itself. The policy did not create the problems Starmer claimed exist in public services and housing. If such problems exist (and I do not think they do), they were created by real people, and not migration policy. The claimed distinction is not just false; it is not present in what Starmer said. His words can be taken at face value, using their plain meaning.
But that claimed meaning is, of course, itself false.
Those coming to this country are helping provide our public services. Just go anywhere in the NHS. Just look at social care. Look at any high stress job and you are more than likely to find a migrant willing and able to do it.
Both traditionally and now, migrants have always built our houses, as well as a great deal else within our infrastructure.
As soon as they are able, migrants pay taxes. There are no rules that permit anything otherwise.
They cannot claim benefits.
Far from that, they have to pay fees to access public services that are free to others.
They are, almost invariably, net contributors to our society. That is true even if they are a student: their fees subsidise those of British students, when they have to pay them (I know Scotland has its own, better, rules).
The damage done has never been due to migrants. And nor has it been due to migration policy.
It has been due to Brexit, to which Starmer is dedicated.
It has been due to a lack of investment in public services for everyone.
It has been due to cuts in social housing, which are continuing.
It has been due to NHS cuts, which are continuing,
It has been due to the failure to link the NHS and social care, which is now going to get very much worse under Labour as it seeks to cut both.
It has been due to cuts in overseas aid, which Labour is revelling in cutting still further at present, with Baroness Jenny Chapman, who is close to Starmer, seeking to slash budgets wherever she can.
It has been due to a failure to spend sufficiently on education over long periods, which Labour is continuing to do, not least by planning for UK universities to now fail.
The incalculable damage to this country is, in other words, the creation of neoliberal policy, which is what Starmer is all about.
Migration is all that has held a lot of the country together, despite rather than because of government action. Do away with inward migration, and things will fall apart.
That is what Starmer is seeking to do. Destruction is all he knows about. He is seeking to swing a wrecking ball whenever he can. And he most certainly did so yesterday.
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Typo alert.
I hope you meant “They are, almost invariably, net contributors..”
Corrected
Thanks
And you were right, of course
Stop war, and provide investment for those countries, and people won’t want to leave them.
You could then spend the military budget on providing housing, food, healthcare, etc.
What is the “million people” composed of (= how many students)?
What is the “end game” on this? Deform/Fart-rage want internment camps? Sir Starmer/McSweeney dither & go along with it.
Deform/Fart-rage want deportations……..Sir Starmer/McSweeney etc
The end point is “The Zone of Interest”.
There is no doubt that McSweeney thinks this will play well with certain sections of UK soceity. The only one being played is Imbecile 1 (McSweeney) and Imbecile 2 (Starmer).
Mike. I’ve always smiled at your “nicknames” for people and your tweaking of various words and phrases, but I have to say Fart-rage is in a league of it’s own. Thanks 🙂
Surely McSweeney doesn’t think Reform voters can be persuaded to vote Labour?
That’s a ridiculous idea.
Ridiculous indeed Graham, but that seems to be Labour’s thinking. Much as though I dislike Farage, and all that he, and his private company, stands for, that particular horse has long since bolted.
McSweeney seems to be wrong about pretty much everything else, so thinking hordes of Reform-ers would suddenly shift to Labour is entirely on script for him.
The fact that nobody else in the higher echelons of LINO could see this doesn’t exactly speak to any sort of political nouse. Performative idiocy at this point.
[…] I have been looking at the etymology of the word 'stranger'. The context is, I hope, obvious. […]
Why do they allow Ukraine and Hong Kong to be included in the figures?
Why do they omit to mention that there is little outward migration of Brits thanks to the end of free movement?
“Why do they allow Ukraine and Hong Kong to be included in the figures” Why do you think they should be treated differently?
The fact there may be less migration out from the UK is pretty irrelevant as it is the overall figures Starmer is lying about.
Labour are not going to give “the soon to be serfs” the freedom to leave for an EU country. I don’t know what labour want. And that means labour MPs have no idea either.
Moving on a step, Richard, but picking up on the policy implications of the White Paper (and speech), some of which you outline here, I found myself wondering what the plan is ‘going forward’ – to use that dreadful expression.
So, I find it interesting that we now appear to have announcements across several policy domains that if you believe in ‘joined up government’ (as pretty successfully practiced for a period by the Blair governments (once they got past their stupid commitment to maintaining the funding constraints of the previous Tory government – REEVES TAKE NOTE) are aligning. Specifically: reducing the number of people able to claim PIP and putting in place various mechanisms to get them back into work; shrinking the HE sector such that more young people move into vocational training; and reducing inward migration.
Consequently, I draw the conclusion that if joined up government is really at work, the plan is to combat the effect of the latter policy – (e.g. it’s impact on the care sector and NHS in particular, with the people ‘freed up’ – as it were – by the former two policies.
Certainly, if I were a (neoliberal) adviser to the government that would be my overarching ‘joined up’ policy approach (Note: in actual fact I wouldn’t have proposed those policies in the first place), and I struggle to conclude that isn’t what the plan is here. I think that’s also particularly likely if you’re the type of person – as Starmer professes to be – who doesn’t see his actions guided by ideology/belief but by believing he’s a problem solver.
We shall see.
You may be right
I may be, but time will tell.
In the meantime, I’ll add a further feature that can be added into the mix. Student accommodation.
This academic year in Nottingham there are, to my knowledge, at least two several hundred room blocks built (in the past two years) as student accommodation that are entirely empty. There are several more (again, built within the past two years) that are only part full. This situation is bound to get worse, not least because even this year the fall in overseas students has been noticeable around town (my wife confirms this as she teaches on a degree that used to attract a lot of – primarily Chinese – overseas students). And overseas students almost always use the accommodation in the student blocks, as opposed to renting a house.
So, is this resource going to be thrown into the new, ‘home grown’, approach to staffing the NHS and the care sector? Perhaps workers will be offered discounted/free accommodation in the rapidly emptying, and thus surplus, (ex) student accommodation? Certainly, a way to solve part of the housing crisis, without putting those pesky asylum seekers/economic migrants that so many people love to hate in them (thus giving Reform ammunition).
Anyway, another possible example of joining up developments in one policy domain with others in another.
Reply to Ivan Horrocks
I think you are crediting this Labour Government with way too much intelligence.
I was thinking along same lines with my comment – my last job was in care, with many colleagues from overseas. Pushing people into care through the ‘benefits’ system was what I instantly pictured. A few years back I had to claim UC and the website reduced me to tears, as it appeared I had no choice of job, I had to spend 35 hours a week applying for anything I could do within a 90 minute commute. Hideous system. And care is the last job you want people working in against their will.
Pure problem solvers like Starmer are given to providing solutions devoid of compassion and ethics.
For example, if we need more workers how about child labour?
Unthinkable – but how different is this morally from “persuading” sick and disabled people, deemed medically unfit for work, to seek work by removing benefits?
A lot of what he says of course is true BUT a stunning indictment of the UK Political and Managerial classes and nothing to do with immigration.
Thats why we have skills and housing shortages
That increase in inward migration figures is huge. However, I don’t believe it is accurate. Until 2019, at least, residents of the EU could come and live and work here without any paperwork. If UK residents moved to an EU country, while there were no impediments, they usually had to register in the country where they were living. Our governments decided we did not want the bother of keeping registers of EU residents in the UK, so, apart from HMRC, DVLA and the NHS there was no record of their presence. So how many of those increased numbers are simply those who either registered as EU nationals living here or replace EU nationals who went home?
Again, again, YET AGAIN! – nothing about how the Tories and their austerity policies and how that affected public services in the forward – blaming it on immigration – anything other than saying what the problem actually is enabling his Chancellor to get away with not doing what needs to be done and him too.
Effing useless as well as dangerous and deeply insulting.
The point is that the Tories increased public spending each and every year, above inflation and still the deficit was increasing – the conclusion that you are missing is that a) there is a significant impact on public services from immigration and b) these immigrants are covering their costs or else the deficit would be going up, as increased tax revenues would have more than covered costs.
But understanding that would lead to the conclusions that you are keen to deny!
Quite literally that does not make sense i.e your claim cannot rationally be understood.
Would you like to try again, with evidence and clarity of presentation and causality this time?
McSweeney is like Cummings on steroids, and that’s not delivered as a complement. He appears to believe that Labour won a stonking victory on the back of him/Starmer as opposed to winning by dint of them not being Tory. The size of the victory is down to a fundamentally broken electoral system. A cushy role in/near Silicon Valley awaits McSweeney post the 2029 GE Labour thumping.
Good points by Ivan Horrocks.
I have to say something aboit PIP as this has become a battleline for some people I know.
It is not am element of social security connected to working at all. It is not a ‘out of work’ element of welfare. It is to help disabled people with extra costs that occur. The corporate media however are hell bent as selling it as being abused to create a firestorm/backlash, create division and hopefully stop it.
What they are doing – which is perturbing – is scraping the UC groups that cant work. So, in effect, if you go on UC you can be sick but you will still have to adhere to your commitmemts and If you dont – sanctions. Oh and if you are sick – you will be assessed for PIP which no one will qualify for as the threshold will be impossible.
Sir Kermit Starmer and McTweeny doing a great job.
Thanks
Since McSweeney, every Labour strategy on any topic seems to have disarmed Labour. And lost the trust of voters.
How?
By pandering to Ye Olde Worlde RW printed media and emulating Reform. All this does is to give Reform respectability.
It’s about time Labour read a book about demographics (a subject which should be taught at school).
You know. Like age bands, percentages of retired people vs working people, ages of immigrants and emigrants.
Then the public and the government might see eye to eye on some big subjects like housing, health & social care and migration.