Keir Starmer has said he “deeply” regrets saying that Britain risked becoming an “island of strangers” because of mass immigration, in the latest U-turn to appease his Left-wing MPs at the expense of aiming for a broader appeal. The Telegraph has more.
The Prime Minister said it “wasn’t right” to use that “particular phrase” in a speech last month, despite No 10 previously insisting that he stood by his words.
He said neither he nor his speechwriters had been aware that the remarks could have been interpreted as an “echo” of the language of Enoch Powell.
The comments from the Prime Minister drew a fierce backlash from Left-wing critics, who accused him of “reflecting the language” of the Right-wing politician’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech.
Sir Keir told the Observer: “I wouldn’t have used those words if I had known they were, or even would be interpreted as an echo of Powell. I had no idea – and my speechwriters didn’t know either.
“But that particular phrase – no, it wasn’t right. I’ll give you the honest truth – I deeply regret using it.”
Earlier this month, the Prime Minister suggested that he regretted the speech, admitting that he could have been more articulate.
He insisted the message he was “trying to get across” was supposed to have been about bringing people together.
Sir Keir delivered the controversial speech last month while announcing a new programme of immigration restrictions.
He said: “Let me put it this way – nations depend on rules, fair rules. Sometimes they are written down, often they are not, but either way, they give shape to our values, guide us towards our rights, of course, but also our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to each other.
“In a diverse nation like ours… we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.”
Sir Keir said high levels of immigration in recent years had caused “incalculable” damage to the UK.
It drew a furious backlash, with John McDonnell, the former Labour shadow chancellor, accusing the Prime Minister of “reflecting the language of Enoch Powell”. Zarah Sultana, the suspended Labour MP, called the speech “sickening”.
Powell, the former Conservative cabinet minister who died in 1998, said in his 1968 speech that the native British population had “found themselves made strangers in their own country” because of immigration.
Sir Sadiq Khan, the Labour Mayor of London, distanced himself from [Starmer’s] remarks at the time, saying they “aren’t words that I would use”.
Eluned Morgan, the First Minister of Wales, also appeared to suggest that Sir Keir had used “divisive language” in his speech.
Diane Abbott, the UK’s first black female MP, described the “island of strangers” comment as “fundamentally racist”, and accused Sir Keir of aping Reform UK in order to turn around Labour’s dire poll ratings.
The Prime Minister’s team also came under fire, with one MP reportedly calling for Sir Keir to sack whoever coined the “island of strangers” phrase.
Worth reading in full.
It’s the latest U-turn in Labour’s simmering civil war over Starmer’s chaotic running of the country, with Starmer loyalists taking aim at the rebel “pricks” who forced the Prime Minister to water down his flagship welfare reforms, leaving Rachel Reeves facing a fiscal black hole of her own. The Mail has more.
Keir Starmer is wrestling to restore his grip on Labour today as loyalists vent fury at rebel “pr**ks” who forced his latest U-turn.
Tensions are running high after a massive revolt saw the PM offer major concessions to salvage flagship legislation on health and disability benefits.
Sir Keir was left personally begging MPs to back the government after more than 120 MPs vowed to kill the plans in a crunch vote on Tuesday.
A deal announced after midnight includes guarantees that existing claimants will not lose money. It is expected to wipe out around £3 billion of the £5 billion savings the Treasury had hoped to get from the reforms – hardening fears that Rachel Reeves will have to hike taxes again in the Autumn.
There have been claims of shouting matches between whips and rebels, with much fury targeted at Sir Keir’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney and “over-excitable boys” running No 10.
Some critics have even demanded “regime change”, eliciting an humiliating public denial from the PM that he might have to quit after failing to “read the room”.
A Cabinet source told MailOnline that No 10 had been wrong to sell the plans initially as a package of cuts, even though polls showed that was popular with the public. “They should have stressed to MPs it was the only way ensure the welfare state still exists in a few years,” the source added.
One Labour veteran told MailOnline that new MPs had proved harder to talk around. “There are some who think this is going to be their only term in government now, so why give up on principles,” they said.
In the Spectator, Steerpike spots further U-turns in Starmer’s Observer interview, as he also renounces his original Rose Garden “things will get worse before they get better” speech and says appointing Sue Gray as his chief of staff was the “wrong” decision.
Renouncing his Rose Garden speech
Not content with dumping on his current speechwriter, Starmer also savages his team’s initial effort in Downing Street. Turns out, he now thinks that saying that “things will get worse before they get better”, was – shock! – a mistake because it “squeezed the hope out. … We were so determined to show how bad it was that we forgot people wanted something to look forward to as well.” Does he stand by any speech he’s given in No 10…?
Throwing Sue Gray under the bus
Prior to this week’s welfare disaster, perhaps the most dramatic moment of Starmer’s brief premiership came after 93 days when he axed Sue Gray as his chief of staff. “Not everyone thought it was a good idea when I appointed her,” he tells Baldwin. “It was my call, my judgement, my decision, and I got that wrong. Sue wasn’t the right person for this job.” Ouch.
The Spectator‘s James Heale counts that as four major U-turns in four weeks as Starmer approaches his Government’s first anniversary in power, with ‘island of strangers’ added to the grooming gangs inquiry, the winter fuel reversal and the welfare concessions. Does the PM still agree with anything he did in his first year?
Perhaps more pertinently, does this bruising period for the PM mark the end of his chasing of Reform votes? Will he now settle instead into governing as the doomed, fiscally incontinent and out of touch Left-wing party that his MPs seem happiest to be? Morgan McSweeney will be keen still to take the fight to Reform. But how much more of it will Labour MPs stomach? How much longer will they even put up with McSweeney? Time will tell.
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