{"id":82275,"date":"2025-05-12T15:36:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T14:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=82275"},"modified":"2025-05-12T15:36:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T14:36:47","slug":"how-dare-keir-starmer-tell-my-family-that-we-have-caused-incalculable-damage-to-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/05\/12\/how-dare-keir-starmer-tell-my-family-that-we-have-caused-incalculable-damage-to-the-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"How dare Keir Starmer tell my family that we have caused incalculable damage to the UK?"},"content":{"rendered":"

These are Guardian headlines<\/a>, published late this morning:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I find these words exceptionally difficult to note when said by someone who claims to have the moral authority that comes from being the prime minister of the UK.<\/p>\n

Starmer's speech today was very obviously based on the argument \u201cI\u2019m not a racist, but\u2026\", but failed as miserably as anything caveated in that way always does, because the comments that Starmer made can only, as far as I am concerned, be interpreted as profoundly racist.<\/p>\n

My Irish grandfather came to this country as an economic migrant.<\/p>\n

Others from his family, including his sister, went to the USA in the same capacity.<\/p>\n

On my wife\u2019s side of my extended family, pretty much everyone is in this country as an economic migrant. Many are second generation, at most. Many maintain strong links with Ireland.<\/p>\n

What right does Keir Starmer have to say that my family and I are \"causing incalculable damage to the UK\"?<\/p>\n

What right does he have to claim that we are strangers in this island? Are we back there now, less welcome in pubs than dogs?<\/p>\n

What right does he have to suggest that we are, somehow, not British enough because we maintain our links with Ireland, are proud to be Irish passport holders, enjoy Irish culture, and do, as is most definitely my habit on occasion, support Ireland in international sporting competitions and in things like Eurovision (and yes, it matters) if only because in the last case that gives us a sporting chance of backing a winning team?<\/p>\n

Is he saying that we are not welcome here as a result?<\/p>\n

Is he saying that what we have added to this country as accountants, doctors, teachers, other medical professionals, builders, other construction industry specialists, and more, should be ignored?<\/p>\n

Is he saying that our children should not have their entitlement to Irish passports, which legally are theirs to enjoy, and that if they do make that claim, then they should be subject to prejudice?<\/p>\n

My stomach churns at his hostility.<\/p>\n

I can feel him stoking the flames of hatred.<\/p>\n

I sense the spirit of the late Rev Ian Paisley within him, or that of Enoch Powell in his Ulster Unionist days.<\/p>\n

I am certain millions of others, born in this country, but with parents or grandparents born elsewhere, and who are proud of those countries from which their forebears came, and all the traditions and cultures that came with them, will share my anger at Starmer's comments that are so intensely insensitive, provocative, dog-whistling, and deliberately racist.<\/p>\n

How dare this little man (because he indicates himself to be of such stature by the comments that he has made) question who I, my extended family, and millions of others in this country are, all to satisfy his desire to pander to the racists in the Conservative and Reform parties?<\/p>\n

And how dare he sacrifice us to his already slight hopes of re-election when immigration is not in any way, even remotely, a part of the problems that this country faces, almost all of which problems are entirely related to the failure of successive neoliberal governments, of which his failed effort is just the latest in a long line of miserable examples?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These are Guardian headlines, published late this morning: I find these words exceptionally difficult to note when said by someone who claims to have the
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