Starmer's strong-man pitch and an 'island of strangers'

Not for the first time, I found myself this week trawling through news headlines and pondering on the great ‘vibe shift’ that has taken place in politics in recent months around the subject of immigration.

After years of debate which was scraping the bottom of the barrel in quality and decency - veering from denouncing anyone with legitimate questions about the UK’s immigration policy as ‘racist’ on the one hand, and outright racism and hostility on the other - it seems immigration is now an acceptable subject for political discussion and action.

Keir Starmer, to disbelief in quarters of his own party, introduced Labour’s White Paper on immigration earlier this week, firmly pitching Labour as a party of strong border controls, lower migration, and strict integration expectations. Particularly striking for me, given Starmer’s former opposition to Brexit, was his deliberate choice to resurrect the slogan “take back control” not once but four times, during the course of his speech.

Yet it was not his claims to be the true heir to Brexit that raised the most eyebrows, but his suggestion that without a reformed, fair, and robust immigration system, Britain risks “becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together”.

To several members of the Labour party and other left-wing MPs, Starmer’s words were a dangerous invocation of the rhetoric of Enoch Powell and his infamous “rivers of blood” speech. To some on the right, Starmer was simply stating facts, with Robert Jenrick arguing that in parts of the country, Starmer’s assessment was already a reality.

Whichever side of the fence you come down on, the speech was undeniably strong. Starmer argued that his strategy would “close the book on a squalid chapter for our politics, our economy, and our country.” He suggested the system seemed “almost designed to permit abuse” and promised to end the failed “experiment in open borders”.

For all of this to come from a politician who, only a few years ago, was avowedly defending the merits of immigration and freedom of movement is a sign of just how fast and how comprehensively the political winds have shifted in recent months.

The most immediate and obvious explanation for such a change of heart is the scale of Reform’s victories in last week’s local and by- elections. Standing on an unabashedly anti-immigration platform, Reform secured victories over the Tories yes, but also over Labour, including in their heartlands, places such as Doncaster and Durham.

Even the most rudimentary of political strategists would be able to spot the direction of travel and advise trying to head them off. Yet Starmer was keen to dispel any notion that his party was simply responding to Reform’s creeping threat.

“I know, on a day like today, 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.”

Rather he was keen to stress that this language, and this action, was required following deliberate choices made by the Conservatives in their final years in government. We will be familiar with those choices, but when laid out bare they are particularly jarring.

Starmer said: “Between 2019 and 2023, even as they were going around our country telling people, with a straight face, they would get immigration down, net migration quadrupled. Until in 2023, it reached nearly 1 million, which is about the population of Birmingham, our second largest city.”

There are many reasons for the ill health of our political system at present: expense scandals, lockdown parties, social media, and a plethora of cases of abuse among politicians. But in my view an often-underappreciated aspect of our current political strife is a persistent failure to deliver on key issues of importance to the electorate.

People have lost faith in politics because politics hasn’t delivered.

Now, I wholeheartedly believe that there are many demands we expect of the government that are simply unreasonable. ‘In the absence of God, government becomes God’, to paraphrase the famous saying, and in our age of unbelief we look to the government to provide answers and hope at a scale it is simply not able to meet. Not for nothing do biblical writers warn God’s people not to put their hope in princes (Psalm 146:3-7).

Yet there are cases in which the public are understandably disheartened. Consistently, the public have voted for political parties who promised to lower immigration, and all the while the numbers shot up. Repeatedly, immigration has featured as a top three issue for the UK public over the past decade.

One can hardly, I think, be surprised when people report low levels of trust in politicians and significant doubts over whether those in government are willing and/or able to deliver for the good of the people.

Parking, for a moment, the cynical explanation of Starmer’s change in heart, he too seemingly recognises this conundrum. “We will deliver what you have asked for – time and again” he argued. And with a deliberate nod to the previous government, he ended his speech saying “this White Paper will deliver: lower net migration, higher skills, backing British workers, the start of repairing our social contract, which the chaos and cynicism of the last government did so much to undermine.”

One of the difficulties at the core of this debate has been that for many, they simply cannot conceive of a criticism of mass immigration that is not in some way rooted in racism or xenophobia.

Concerns around the pressures placed on public services and the housing market are dismissed. Questions about the economic impact of ‘cheap labour’, from stifling innovation to depressing wages, are seen as invalid. Likewise, fears that people are losing faith in the welfare system, which rests (in theory) on the principle of reciprocity, are not worth considering.

To entertain a tougher, stricter border policy is simply to pander to the worst elements of our society, some argue.

At the same time, the low lying but persistent support garnered by figures like Tommy Robinson, or moments of despicable violence such as the Southport riots last summer, does show that there can indeed be racism and prejudice at play in certain quarters.

This, I suspect is why the debate has been ignored for so long, and why so much of it is of such awful quality. But with the British state stretched to breaking point, and with public frustration becoming impossible to ignore, Starmer has no choice but to respond. As Robert Jenrick stated in his response to the plans, the public are “sick of rhetoric, they want action”.

And yet exactly how to respond is the tricky bit.

For all that I am a democrat, the wishes of the people are not necessarily in and of themselves good. There is wisdom in crowds, yes, but also foolishness. All are made in the image of God and so capable of reflecting goodness, justice, righteousness, and discerning something of truth in this world. But we also stand as fallen and fallible beings capable of error, misdirection, and deliberate wickedness.

Britain is beset with multiple challenges. People feel poorer, frustrated, restless, there is a desire for change, and it seems an increasing willingness to jettison the status quo in search for hope and reform. Well-channelled and stewarded towards positive action and meaningful improvements, this attitude could be a blessing.

But there are others (on both left and right) that will seek to play on people’s fear and frustrations to disrupt, divide, frustrate, and alienate. As Christians we are not immune to these temptations, and we can just as easily succumb to bitterness or hostility.

The liberal assumptions of the past thirty years seem to be crumbling: they have come up against reality and been discredited. There is an opportunity here for our society to rebuild, a chance to rebalance the economy, to train and pay workers fairly, to restore trust in the welfare system, to genuinely foster integration and community cohesion efforts. Yet we shouldn’t be naïve, overcorrection is a real risk.

It seems to me that one of the challenges in the immigration debate is heavy handedness. Dismissing concerns around immigration is simply no longer a viable option for democratic governments to pursue. There is a need to demonstrate ‘toughness’ and ‘action’, particularly after many years of tough words which were accompanied by misguided or poor policy choices, resulting in no, or ineffective, action. But proving credentials in order to win over a sceptical public, by being tougher both in word and deed than is strictly necessary, can result in unnecessary cruelty, as was the case with the Windrush scandal.

For all the controversial headlines, it seems Starmer is seeking to walk the fine line here. He has opted to pitch his approach as ‘tough but fair’, arguing in his speech both for the merits of immigration and the positive contributions of many immigrants, yet at the same time recognising the excesses of the system as is and the need to act in the interests of social cohesion, economic development, and political stability.

I want to see a humane argument against immigration: one that has people at its heart: recognising the pressures on those domestically struggling for jobs or housing or stability, and recognising too that immigrants aren’t simply an economic resource to be used but are human beings, created in God’s image.

As societal angst continues and negative headlines flash across our screens, I have been reflecting on these words in recent days by Amy Mantravadi:

“In times of great societal division, there is a danger that our love will grow cold: that we will become so afraid of our neighbours that we can no longer move outward in forgiveness and love, but instead turn inward in bitterness and resentment. As time goes by, our bitterness solidifies into hate, until we are consumed by anger and emptied of joy.

This is a miserable existence without virtue, in which we become the thing we despise. What we truly need in such a difficult hour is faith, hope, and love. Like fish in a bowl, we are soaking in polluted water which grows darker and more toxic by the day, and only if we move upward toward the light will we be able to breathe again. Faith, hope, and love are the oxygen that keeps our joy alive.

Faith is not blind trust, but a God-given confidence in the perfect work of Christ applied to us. Hope is not wishful thinking, but the knowledge that Christ will return to set up his kingdom. Love is not weakness as the world defines it, but the weakness of Christ’s cross, which by faith we understand is the height of glory.”

Societal angst is the flavour of the month. There are a hundred and one reasons to despair. But as believers we walk by faith and not by sight. We hold the kingdom of heaven dearer than the kingdom in which we currently reside. And we strive to participate in public life not for selfish gain or vain conceit, but for the good of the city, and everyone in it.

There is a legitimate debate to be had here, and robust reforms will, no doubt, be made. But let us beware that danger of overcorrection, of lurching into the cold and dark. And let us remember that everyone, including the ‘stranger’, is made in the image of our God.