Should we believe Starmer on Immigration?

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.”*

Sir Keir Starmer seems to have been coached by Humpty Dumpty in his approach to immigration. As recently as 2020, when seeking to portray himself as the heir to Jeremy Corbyn, he said, “We have to make the case for the benefits of immigration… and we have to make it strongly”.

Earlier this week, he did the opposite and made the case against immigration, using language that is redolent of Enoch Powell's so-called ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech when he argued that “we risk becoming an island of strangers”.

How can he possibly have changed so much? Or do his words mean very little?

It is not wrong for politicians to change their minds. It is, in some cases, a sign of strength. Some evolutions of policy represent the mature consideration of changed circumstances, rather than the revolution forced by failure that is implicit in the phrase ‘U-turn’. Yet Starmer on migration lacks credibility. It goes against the grain of what he has previously expressed, and seemed to believe to the depths of his soul.

Sir Keir Starmer is a lawyer famous for his advocacy of international law. This is seen in his adherence to the European Court of Human Rights, his preference for Davos over Westminster, and his respect for other international agreements, such as the Refugee Convention.

His historic views and current actions still seem to support a significant number of what he, and the government he leads, prefer to call ‘irregular’ migrants, which most people think of as illegal migrants. The refuge granted to people arriving in small boats is because of the implications of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Refugee Convention. These agreements stymied the Rwanda plan, while the ECHR has the additional disadvantage of permitting foreign criminals to evade deportations at the end of their sentences, for trivial reasons.

Starmer opposed every effort to limit the influx when he was in opposition, and on becoming Prime Minister, scrapped the Rwanda scheme. He was a supporter of migrants, regardless of their legal status or of the consequences for British people.

This is of a piece with his approach to the European Union. As the Shadow Brexit Secretary to Corbyn, he wanted to have a second referendum, in which he would have campaigned to Remain. A victory for the Remainers would have maintained the free movement of people from the EU. Even without a second referendum, he wanted to remain in the Single Market and the Customs Union, which would have implicitly meant keeping free movement. Starmer did not formally accept this, but he went as far as suggesting a close, liberal migration relationship with the EU. Overall, the history of Starmer is one of support for mass migration.

Free movement of people led to 6.3 million of them claiming settled status after the UK left the EU. That number was made up of citizens of EU member states, a few from the EEA and EFTA, and an astonishing 510,500 from other countries who claimed to be family members but were not themselves from an EU or EEA nation.

6.3 million was more than three times the number forecast by the Home Office, which expected 2 million to claim settled status. Hence, free movement meant that almost 10 per cent of the population could be from the EU, a much higher proportion than expected, but something Starmer was perfectly happy about and wanted to continue to allow.

Yet this week, he has suddenly become all Alf Garnett, and decries the numbers who are already here and have not integrated. This simply does not seem a credible view for him to hold, considering all his previous statements. Nor does his rhetoric match the reality of his proposed policy changes, so the fanfare that greeted the government's new policy was entirely disproportionate to the facts.