Starmer is aping Nigel Farage's anti-migrant rhetoric when no one would worry about migration if Labour delivered what people want from the government.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
It really is time that Keir Starmer stopped pandering to Nigel Farage and all the myths and all the lies that he puts out into the UK political domain.
As is obvious, Labour is at present trying to take Farage on.
They're putting out material that even looks as if it comes from Reform.
They're filming themselves expelling migrants from the UK.
They're trying to look like the tough people who are dealing with boats on the beach.
And all of this is utterly politically inept. The reason why is actually glaringly obvious, except apparently to Labour ministers.
I get all the concerns of people who worry about migration.
People who do worry about migration talk about the pressure on social housing and that they can't get it, and they see people who don't look like them or sound like them getting houses, and they say migrants are to blame.
They see a queue at the NHS, and they can't get an appointment, and they say migrants are to blame.
They say they can't get a job, and they blame migrants who have got jobs.
They claim that the country is being overwhelmed by migrants and the truth is, it isn't.
Richard Tice appears on television and says that this is the biggest issue in politics today, and very bluntly, it's not.
And the reason why I can say with absolute confidence that this issue is not the big issue in politics today is because of all the statements that I just made.
People in the UK are worried about housing; they're worried about the NHS; they're worried about jobs; they're worried about education; they're worried about social care, and those other things that make their lives possible when they live on incomes that mean they are necessarily dependent upon the state for the supply of those services.
Because those services don't work, they're looking for a scapegoat. The scapegoat that Nigel Farage has been using for years, and every far-right politician is - and every far-right politician loves a scapegoat because that's how they operate - the scapegoat that Nigel Farage is using is the migrant into the UK.
But let's be clear; migration is of nothing like the order that Nigel Farage claims. The number of people who are actually coming, as he would put it illegally, across the English Channel into the UK is very small. It is tens of thousands a year, undoubtedly, but in proportion to legal inward migration, where we grant visas to the people coming, it is a very small proportion of the whole.
And even if we look at legal migration, the impact upon the UK is that the vast majority of people in this country are, as they have been for a long time, white, English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh or other - but long-term resident in this country. In other words, this whole story that migration is the great threat is fabricated, and it is being used by Farage as a way to attack Labour and the Tories, who have failed to deliver decent public services.
And, now, Labour and the Tories are falling for the lie to cover their own failure and to suggest that, in practice, if only they could deal with migration, then everything else would be solved.
It is complete nonsense to suggest that everything would be solved if migration was stopped into this country. In fact, everything would almost certainly get worse.
We are dependent upon people who come from overseas to make our NHS function.
We are dependent upon people who come from overseas to make our social care system function.
There are quite a lot of teachers in the UK who were not born here or who are born of parents who themselves were not born here.
This is how a great many of our public services are now supplied.
As is commonly said, the person who is a migrant who is likely to be in front of you in the NHS is not the next person in the queue but is instead the doctor or the nurse that you're waiting to see.
We do need more people coming into this country at present in the UK for one very straightforward reason. Our birth rate is very low.
In the UK as a whole, it is well below 2 per woman. In Scotland, it's only about 1.2 per woman.
In other words, we are not reproducing our own existing population from the people who were already born here and living here. Therefore, if we are to look after our ever-ageing population, of whom I am a representative example, then we must have people coming into the UK to make good the shortfall in population that we have created by not having enough children.
It is as simple and straightforward as that. If the UK was a business, it would be recruiting overseas to fill its skills gap. Because we're a country, apparently, that's unacceptable. But why is very hard to work out. Unless we do want to go down the line of the business that fails to recruit people to fill those skills gaps, which is usually the pathway to failure. So, we do need migrants.
But what we also need is a government that works; a government that does solve the problems in the NHS; that does provide good education for everyone; that does provide social care; that does focus upon full employment rather than balancing the books.
We could have such a government. We could, if only we had a government that was not obsessed with book balancing and focusing only on private sector growth when the only source of growth in the UK economy at present is in the public sector. We could solve the problems, and if we did, there would be no issue about migration.
But, because the government is refusing to deliver social care, health care, education, a proper justice system, proper education, and everything else that we desire, we are still looking for scapegoats, and Labour is as bad when it comes to that, as are the Tories, as are Reform, and as is anybody else who is blaming migration for this problem.
Migrants are not our problem. Migrants are solving our problems. Our problem is government that refuses to work on behalf of the people of the UK. And until we get governments that do work on behalf of the people of the UK, there will still be scapegoats. And I don't like that because I don't like blaming people who are not at fault.
And that's what Tice is doing.
That's what Farage is doing.
That's what Starmer is doing.
That's what Yvette Cooper, as our Home Secretary, is doing.
That is what Kemi Badenoch is doing as leader of the Conservative Party.
They're all making excuses and blaming people who are not to blame for our problems but who are instead helping solve them when they refuse to take the necessary action to do that themselves.
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This is quite disturbing from you. You recognise that about tens of thousands come illegally on small boats every year and there are others who came by legal routes who have committed crimes which invalidate their right to reside. It’s true that they are a small proportion of the total which is 100s of thousands, but to endorse their expulsion, and to other them.
I thought that you of all people would be standing up for those here illegally.
What have I actually said to which you I object?
I ag always made it clear it is impossible to arrive here illegally – although was not perhaps explicit about that in this video.
And I have made it very clear we need inward migration.
So what have I done wrong?
The only reason they’re “illegal” is because the Tories have made it impossible for people from very many countries to apply to come here while they’re still in their own or other countries. They can only do so once they get here, so getting here without previous permission is illegal. But they’re not criminals!
And the reason many want to leave their own country is because we and the USA have been supplying bombs and weapons, so they and their families aren’t safe there.
So, to sum up:
We have the Age of Aggression.
The Age of Corruption.
The Age of Cynicism.
And now we have the Age of Cowardice to add to our accomplishments.
That’s about it.
You missed: The Age of inept governments.
Inept because some/many legal immigrants come to undertake jobs that the UK (gov & industry) has failed to train its populace for.
This has been a trend for a few decades – the decline of industry (1990s) reduced the numbers of craft apprenticeships, the charging of university fees skewed the intake (with industrial decline reducing the attractiveness of industry). In the case of health – shortage of nurses? offer a grant + free training? nah – charge them.
All cloaked in “we can’t afford it”, gov’ akin to a crack cocaine junkie – knows it is bad for it but can’t help his/herself.
We’re looking at ~50% increase in people of state pension age by 2050. On top of that, much of that cohort will live far in excess of their life expectancy at birth.
I’d like the anti-immigration mob to explain, to the nation’s younger people, exactly how much of a burden they intend to place upon them. We’re, as a nation, aging in the range of a month per annum to a year per decade. They expect fewer and fewer people (birthrates are still trending downwards and have been over the long-term) to replace greater numbers in the workforce; pay their pensions and find the time and resources to accommodate age related care needs.
We’ve already saddled them with extremely poor prospects of home ownership; failing infrastructure; student debt, etc…
I’m 61, I wouldn’t want to be 21. Given that when I was 21, it was peak Maggie, that’s quite an indictment of the state we’re in.
Starmer still has the audacity to parade himself as a human rights lawyer whilst behaving despicably.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/feb/12/judge-granted-palestinian-family-asylum-made-wrong-decision-keir-starmer
Is this white skinned christian / non religious people are ok but brown / muslims are not no matter what other characteristics they may have?
Every human rights legal case has a lawyer for and a lawyer against. Starmer acted against as well as for. It has no relevance to his beliefs.
What he has proved is that he is a rubbish lawyer. I understand he has said that he disagrees with the judgment. Fair enough, a judge can be wrong. But he has also said the he will act to change the law to prevent this. If the law needs changing to prevent this, the judge was not wrong. You cannot have it both ways.
Every day two lawyers go into court arguing they are right
Invariably one of them is wrong
Thank you, Ali.
When I heard about PMQs on the news, I remarked to my parents that we don’t or no longer belong here.
After Starmer made some comments last July, dad, a decorated RAF veteran, like his father and some of their relatives from WW2, said so, too. That made up our minds to think about leaving. I joked that, on our way out, we could swing by Downing Street and he return his and his father’s medals.
May I make a few points,
Firstly the world is going through a Demographic Transition with birth rates dropping below replacement rates almost everywhere so the idea that we can continue to import labour looks unrealistic admittedly over a very long term.
Then there are the impacts on the countries people leave, certainly recruiting large numbers of healthcare workers from the less developed world raises some real ethical issues.
Given whats happening in the UK economy UK wages are heading towards ‘Eastern European’ levels and its possible that we could either not be able to recruit overseas workers or that many Eastern Europeans might return to their home countries.
Then there is the issue of our deregulated labour and housing markets, the abuses suffered by migrant workers in particular in agriculture and care sectors are well documented so whats being done about them?
Clearly a combination of migration and deregulated labour markets isnt pretty for anybody.
Then of course what about making the best use if the resources we have, large numbers of young people leaving school and not making the transition to employment or more importantly secure productive employment should be a concern to Government but it seems it actually isnt.
Finally and following from the above the UK has a major issue over productivity, hand car washes being the most obvious example, if we are going through a global demographic transition why are we not looking at Productivity?
You are ignoring the mass migration from climate change.
No steer Keir and the rest of the Labour cabinet are seemingly determined to do nothing to correct the hollowing out of public services to improve the lot of the ordinary populace of the UK.
Labour is content playing gesture politics to please the City etc.
The age of “things can only get worse”
This is very personal to me as my wife has later stage Dementia. I still have her at home with me, but this would not be possible without the help from care assistants. Now, they are all without exception, black, and all from various African countries. I cannot praise too highly their care, skill and compassion they show to my wife. I know at least some of them have university degrees, so are vastly more qualified to do other occupations. Without their help, my wife would have to be in residential care, as I could not possibly care for her on my own. Immigrants are not the problem.
Thank you and look after yourself as well.
Zoe Gardner had a similar message yesterday. As she says, Labour is “crawling on its belly” following Reform. Similarly with respect to Trump. And others. As she also says, in the end the monster will always bite off the hand that feeds it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NAjl2Pe8z44
I am in total agreement with your observations Richard. However, after a lifetime of global travel I have devised alternative solutions to combat the reality of our aging UK population as outlined in a number of documents I sent you entitled, ‘Collaborative Circular Migration. As a senior, my greatest concern at this time is for young people growing up here. They have been penalized to the greatest extent by our neoliberal governments that includes ending freedom of movement and Erasmus in addition to all of the financial penalties with which we have burdened them. We cannot expect young people to start families when they have low wages, zero job security, unaffordable rents and in some cases the added burden of student debt!
I have no problem with people coming to the UK to work, but the ability to pay foreign workers 20% less than their equivalent here has placed UK graduates at a seriously unfair disadvantage. Despite already being aware of this, I was really surprised to hear this injustice clearly articulated by an insightful young conservative functionary during a Newsnight panel discussion. This sad reality has dramatically disincentivized the training of our students, apprentices and young job applicants so this damaging policy must be reversed ASAP.
During a ten country tour for a ‘Needs Assessment of Anesthesia Care in Sub-Saharan Africa’ I witnessed first hand the severe damage inflicted on developing nations overseas by our scavenging ‘the best and the brightest’ medical professionals from countries who could ill afford to train them. Alongside a Nurse Anesthetist who had trained in Malawi, and worked for a time in our NHS before returning to Blantyre, we discussed workable alternatives that are, for the first time, beneficial to both the UK and foreign healthcare systems.
Since training in Africa obviously meets our standard, or we would not be taking their graduates for our NHS, why not send a contingent of our medical students to complete the bulk of their training in stable countries in Africa? Funds from our Foreign Aid budget could be used to help develop the training facilities and supply hospital investment, plus cover the cost of training. This would benefit the healthcare systems we have decimated through unconscionable past scavenging. The most mutually beneficial result would involve pairing UK medical students one on one with local candidates to help forge a colegate bond in future practice. This would be an excellent use of our Foreign Aid budget, well accepted by the public with a lower cost for training our medical professionals.
This was the first of a number of Collaborative Circular Migration proposals that I subsequently started drafting in the run-up to Brexit, all of which are designed to be equally beneficial to sending and recipient countries. I also considered the potential for overseas training within the EU to combat skills shortages in the UK. If it costs less to train plumbers in Poland or bricklayers in Spain why not organize opportunities for our school levers to train on the continent? In many cases training in other countries would be sought-after by receiving countries due to the boost to their economy from both accommodating our trainees and the jobs in training. In most cases this would cost less than providing training in the UK.
The gap year taken by wealthy students is a financially viable concern for the countries who host them. However there is no legitimate reason why a similar experience could not be arranged for out of work school leavers funded by our government. This would be more cost effective than initiating our youth into the hopelessly distressing UK benefit system! Among the younger generation I honestly believe that the chance to experience life, and the unique challenges faced in a developing country, is a very valuable and maturing experience that would better prepare them for an independent career after their return.
It is an undeniable fact that our rapidly increasing elderly population has required an influx of migrants to balance the available workers to contribute within our society. However, an alternative proposition would require our government to provide equally matching levels of financial support in retirement no matter where a person chooses to settle. This option should also be available to chronically disabled people. Right now we penalize those who retire or move overseas by eliminating certain benefits they have earned entitlement to. With certain countries including India, Canada and Australia, the pension remains at a fixed rate disregarding all future increases.
This UK policy is massively counter productive and in some cases leves elderly people isolated after their children emigrate to Canada, Australia or elsewhere. I am not suggesting that our pensioners should be compelled to leave, but those who want to go should no longer be penalized financially. We might be surprised to discover countries competing to accommodate this sector since, if they were financially supported, they would be equivalent to long-term tourists! If the health and care costs of both elderly and disabled who chose to live elsewhere were covered, exactly as they would be in the UK, it would help to bail out struggling EU economies like Greece. This would free up housing and take pressure off the NHS and care sector while costing the UK less in benefits.
A number of those who retire to developing countries might also want to engage in local mentorship, supported by our existing network within the VSO program. The return of successful entrepreneurs to a developing country of origin would facilitate the opportunity to contribute via mentorship to the stability of poorer nations and thereby rebuild the ‘soft power’ of positive influence. These strategies have a direct impact on ‘stopping the boats’ as the influx of valuable input and training support will go a long way towards combating the poverty driven instability overseas.
The policies of the Tory government were extremely successful for the support of their underlying agenda. A growing cohort of foreign professionals, who were paid less than UK graduates, drove down opportunities and wages here in the UK. With fewer basic rights, these employees form an ultra compliant workforce, ripe for abuse. An influx of desperate refugees, eager to work, are held in the endless limbo of an asylum claim system purposely ground to a standstill by the Tories. It was fully anticipated that, without the barest minimum of support, these industrious migrants would seek illegal work and disappear into the black economy. This has further suppressed local wages and helped to obliterate the power of UK unions, exactly as it was designed to do. Brexit was advantageous as it removed EU workers that had equal rights to work here.
There is no legitimate reason why those seeking asylum should not be allowed to work legally to support themselves in the interim. Hence another component of the Collaborative Circular Migration proposals, the ELR, ‘Earn, Learn and Return Visa’ Visa. This should be available to asylum seekers to provide for a viable return for those unable to remain here. This ELR Visa would also bring migrant workers here for a fixed period of work in areas like agriculture and care. Their accommodation and food would be provided as a modest component of their pay, but they would be encouraged to save in an ELR savings account. Since this would only be payable after returning to their country of origin, our government could top-up these savings as a legitimate component of our Foreign Aid commitment.
What would this policy accomplish? We would have the workers required to harvest our crops and help in the care sector, but they would be fully incentivised to go home at the completion of their contract. Those employed in the program would also be offered small dedicated training programs, in areas like ‘Care in the Community’ and ‘Vector Eradication’, further incentivised by earning additional funds for their ELR account. Participants would return home with added skills and the savings they had earned, with which to start a small business, invest in equipment or buy a small plot of land. The money earned here would go a lot further in most of the countries they returned to.
The ELR Visa program would literally ‘drip feed’ funding directly into local communities overseas where it would have the greatest stabilizing impact. This strategy would be far better than using our Foreign Aid budget to pay for worthless assessments by overpaid UK functionaries, just as I personally witnessed during my time in Indonesia as a medical volunteer after the Boxing Day tsunami. It would prevent such funds being leached away in bribes and lost in government corruption. When we pay to support healthcare programs in some cases it will liberate funds that are then spent on weapons by despotic leaders. UK support to Rwanda is a classic example of this as their troops are now actively engaged in destabilizing the DRC!
If we genuinely want to ‘stop the boats’ for understandable humanitarian reasons, Collaborative Circular Migration offers viable solutions, all of which are designed to be mutually beneficial. This is just a brief snapshot of a few of the proposals briefly outlined in the documents I sent. I fully appreciate how hard you work, but I hope that at some point you will have the time to read through these documents if you get the opportunity as I would really appreciate your critique of these ideas.
I note what you are saying but I am not sure they would work – sorry
Most people do not think as you do
No one would be compelled to take advantage of any of these programs, but if the choice was open to us I don’t doubt many people would engage if it was to their personal benefit. I would really like to know in your opinion, which components of Collaborative Circular Migration wouldn’t work and why they wouldn’t work, as I really value your feedback.
When I get time
It is not a luxury I have at present
I hope it might be
You said ‘ the ability to pay foreign workers 20% less than their equivalent here has placed UK graduates at a seriously unfair disadvantage. ‘
I am sorry, but I really don’t understand what you are saying here. Pleae could you elaborate?
Although this is rarely mentioned, the law is exactly as stated here and the fact that this insane regulation is still in place was confirmed by Samuel Kasumu the Conservative Special Adviser to the Prime Minister 2019 – 2021 when he was a Newsnight panelist just a few days ago. On the 7th of February, Friday night’s show, listen to what he says at minute 20:18 starting with “As I’m sure you are aware” he says: “you can pay someone from abroad 20% less than the market rate to come and do the job”. This grubby little secret is the disincentive to UK training in place for years while politicians fail to highlight this fact.
I greatly appreciate the work you do and the constraints on your time Richard, so I must be patient in the hope you will get the chance at some point.
During the EU Referendum campaign Jeremy Corbyn, who campaigned for Remain and Reform, said he’d put a stop to employers hiring foreign labour in order to undercut British workers. He’d have reinstated the Posted Workers Directive so everyone would get a fair wage for doing the same work.
Just got home from 2+ weeks in hospital.
Difficult to define but at least 50% of the staff spoke with an accent – cleaning staff through nurses to doctors and surgeons. Maybe more. To a man (and woman) an interesting bunch to talk to. All smiles and caring.
Wandering the wards well over 95% of patients spoke without an accent.
Clearly immigration is not blocking anyone’s access to NHS services. Just the opposite.
Thanks
And get well
A while ago Australia were promoting a scheme to attract schoolteachers from Britain with a very generous package of benefits, and it was both heartwarming and frankly a relief to see a Western nation grasp the fact, even if only in a very limited way, that we are in *competition* for migrants. Now, I’m one of those bleeding-heart open-borders hardliners on principle, but as is so often the case the good and the savvy here coincide, and it’s frustrating that politics and policy is so frequently neither.
(Of course, the flipside of an explicitly competitive attitude like this is that one is deliberately and consciously depriving other countries of people they probably need, but in any case that is not the problem of any individual person, and to take it out on them would be most unjust.)