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Starmer can't ignore the rioters. Susannah Ireland/AFP/Getty Images.
In his influential 1939 treatise against utopian thinking in foreign policy, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, E.H. Carr made an analogy with domestic politics that seemed so obvious at the time it needed neither elaboration nor justification. “It is not the ordinarily accepted moral duty of a state to lower the standard of living of its citizens by throwing open its frontiers to an unlimited number of foreign refugees,” he wrote, “though it may be its duty to admit as large a number as is compatible with the interests of its own people.” That the same principle might apply to economic migrants was presumably too self-evident to merit stating.
Yet having lost sight, like so many Mrs Jellybees, of the principle that the foremost duty of a national government is safeguarding the security and prosperity of its own people, and not in maximising the sum total of global happiness, governments across Europe and the wider Western world are duly being punished by their voters. France has no functioning government as a downstream consequence of the rise of the National Rally, an explicit reaction to mass immigration and its results. Macron’s current prime ministerial pick, Michel Barnier, it is worth noting, advocates a years-long halt to non-European immigration and a referendum on acceptable migration levels. In Germany, the AfD’s success in Thuringia, and the unstable and unnatural coalitions that will be attempted to maintain the cordon sanitaire against the party, surely presage the collapse of its weak and unpopular coalition government, perhaps before next year’s election. Rather than the immediate installation of anti-immigration Right-wing governments, the short-term trend is for the politics of mass immigration to make Europe’s largest and most powerful nations ungovernable.
For Keir Starmer’s government, whose first weeks in office were marked by a wave of anti-migrant pogroms across northern English towns, the risks are clear. Britain is already in an unusual situation where the Conservatives lost an election but Labour didn’t really win one, being merely a vehicle to remove the Tories in a markedly anti-systemic contest. Already strikingly unpopular for a new government, Labour have five years to magic up prosperity from nothing — which they cannot do — and shield Britain from geopolitical turbulence — which they are temperamentally disinclined to do. Starmer is perhaps best understood as a 2010s political figure — a Merkel, Ardern, or Trudeau — marooned in the even more polarised landscape of the 2020s by Britain’s distorting Brexit interlude. Constrained by decades of bad choices by preceding governments, Labour have so far displayed no better response to the perils of the moment than austerity, petty authoritarianism and kneejerk populist gestures — at the time of writing, over concert ticket pricing. In this context, it is hard to imagine the Starmer era entering history as anything other than a grim, but short interregnum before Britain re-enters the world of European politics, in which mass immigration is the central crisis around which political systems revolve and then disintegrate.
Looking at Europe, we see three plausible scenarios for how the politics of immigration may shape Britain’s future. It is not hard to see Germany’s coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals being replicated here: the results, in Germany, are as we see. Every terror attack, or random act of violence carried out by migrants discredits the liberal consensus further, while well-meaning but poorly-planned energy policies collapse the economy, driving further discontent and radicalisation. Björn Höcke’s Flügel faction, long controversial within the AfD itself, has achieved the party’s greatest success not by moderating its discourse but by radicalising, toying with National Socialist allusions and adopting an Identitarian platform of mass deportations, which — should the party eventually gain power — may reach far beyond Merkel’s history-altering demographic wave. The greatest degree of support for the AfD in Thuringia and across Germany is shown by the young. Observing the tenor of discourse among the younger British Right, who may be expected to enter politics within a decade or so, there is currently little, beyond an expanded and intrusive security state, to prevent similar dynamics emerging here.
Paralysed, a politically moribund Scholz has ceded the discourse on migration to the opposition CDU, who present us with the second potential outcome, of mainstream conservatives adopting a significantly harder line on migration, either to keep the radical Right out of power, or to form mainstream governments in which the radical Right is the kingmaker, as in impeccably liberal Sweden and the Netherlands. As a response to the latest terrorist atrocity, CDU leader Friedrich Merz has proposed declaring a national emergency over migration, enabling the state to turn migrants back at the border, with a blanket ban on admissions from Syria and Afghanistan. None of this is currently within the Overton Window of British politics, but then neither is the new policy from Scholz, Starmer’s German analogue, of deporting dangerous migrant criminals to Afghanistan and the Taliban justice system, unapologetically placing the safety of the German public over the interests of those who have been granted — and then abused — the German state’s hospitality. Depending on the outcome of the Conservative leadership contest, it is not difficult to imagine a Tory party, pressed by a Reform insurgency, either fending off the challenge from its right through a wholesale rejection of its own recent, disastrous record on migration, or pursuing some form of collaboration with Reform, should the new party continue its upward trend.
It is to stave off either of the above scenarios that Labour is presented with the third path, as shown by Denmark. Having, through its adoption of a harder line on migration, disentangled the ostensible task of social democratic government from the pursuit of mass immigration as a moral good in itself — a tendency which has, in recent decades, consumed the Western Left — Denmark has sidestepped the political turmoil overtaking other European democracies. Asylum, in Denmark, is now framed as a temporary measure, rather than a route to permanent settlement, drastically limiting the numbers of those who see asylum claims as an effective legal hack to improve their economic prospects. Those who require a place of refuge are granted one, for as long as their homes remain unsafe: those who do not, and merely exploit the humanitarianism of the Danish public, are rejected. With migration increasingly depoliticised through its overwhelmingly popular new policies, the Danish centre-left is freed to get on with the business of normal governance, a luxury Starmer will soon envy.
If we work on the basis that Labour intends to win the next election, then there are many relatively simple and perfectly humane solutions Starmer can adopt to drain British politics of the poisoned well left to him by previous governments. Indeed, Labour’s promising early start on deportations suggests the former human rights lawyer understands Britain’s tolerant asylum system can only be preserved through aggressive reform. But first he must purge the extremists within his ranks. A decade ago, at the height of Merkel’s grand experiment with opening Europe’s borders to, inter alia, the Islamic State, British liberals found it easy to frame Poland and Hungary’s rejectionist stance as the regrettable policies of mere Central Europeans with tenuous attachments to liberal democracy. For all their parochial solipsism, it will be harder for the British liberal commentariat spawned by Conservative rule and Brexit to condemn Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany as illiberal authoritarian countries lost to enlightened governance.
Harmonising with our closest European neighbours against Britain’s increasingly anomalous immigration maximalism would mark a clear fresh start from decades of Tory failure. During the election, Starmer’s Labour actively and rightly campaigned against the Conservative Party’s bizarre and unnecessary liberalisation of legal immigration, the result of which was nearly 4% of Britain’s population arriving within the last two years. As highlighted by Tony Blair’s intervention last week, observing that Boris Johnson’s government exchanged economically productive European workers for low-waged extended families from the developing world, this is a Tory policy error of catastrophic proportions. Yet errors are better rectified than lamented: all that need be done is allow the visas granted to low-wage migrant workers to expire without renewal. No long-settled populations would be uprooted, no long-standing human rights norms breached. Similarly, why should taxpayers maintain nearly 1.7 million unemployed migrant workers — a uniquely British oxymoron — at an annual cost of £8 billion, while suffering austerity themselves? There is no reason for migrants in the UK not to reside under the same rules that apply to British expats in the EU. What is the defensible case for hosting, rather than deporting, foreign criminals, while releasing dangerous offenders of our own?
It never ceases to amaze me how most politicians seem incapable of adopting sensible, popular immigration policies. They might even attain more votes and more trust. A better outcome all round.
The alternative, the current situation, kicking the can down the road will end with a battered can and no more road. Activist lawyers, and others, can find more appropriate constructive ccupations. Road maintenance?
The problem is more complex than you think. Firstly they get stuck on needing to support legal migration because they’ve been dishonest about the impact on key sectors if they block it. Secondly they are often more worried about inflation and it’s electoral impact. And thirdly on illegal migration they duck ID cards and focus on using the subject for electoral gain rather than practical policies to tackle the issue.
“The most likely outcome of its systemic failure is not an endless upward trajectory of mass migration, but no asylum system at all.” Yes – and who could blame the West when this happens.
Well now. Will Starmer’s famed “ruthlessness” (so well displayed in the U-turn over Diane Abbott) allow him to face down his cabinet and his party? Messieurs et mesdames, faites vos jeux!
Will be a challenge with some, but alot of MPs also know securing their seat longer term requires it. He’ll thus have less difficultly here than say with winter fuel bills.
Starmer has an alternative. Follow the example of the Democrats and allow 5 million more Labour voters to migrate to Britain by 2029.
‘anti-migrant pogroms’ is a hysterical term used to label the spontaneous protests that arose after the mass stabbings of three innocent girls. Islamists have form in attacking and killing women and girls and we don’t yet know the motivation of the killer. Radicalisation or ‘mental health’?
Everyday brings boatloads of people who hate our way of life and wish us harm while we pay for them.
Islamists (depending on how one defines that) may have ‘form’. Millions of Muslims do not. In fact worldwide ‘Islamists’ kill and murder more Muslims than any other group. The question is – are you and others capable of distinguishing? Clearly the vast majority of rioters were not egged on by the keyboard warrior similarly ignorant with a racial trigger.
Of course we are (capable of distinguishing). And as your comment indicates, it’s vitally important that we can and do discriminate. Indeed, you imply that you can too. And if we don’t discriminate (in the sense of being able to tell the difference), I think we’ve got serious problems. But I think we are actually in agreement here.
We are not, however, and cannot be responsible for people reading our words who either misunderstand them or (far more commonly) choose to misprepresent them. We cannot be constantly looking over our shoulders trying to second guess how other people might [mis]intepret what we write when it’s perfectly clear to any reasonable person.
Some are capable PB, but far from convinced sufficient, esp here on Unherd. Self evident from many of the comments.
Clearly most rioters weren’t. They lumped all Muslims and Asylum seekers as Islamists.
The convenient Left-Liberal trope that “the vast majority” of Muslims in Britain want nothing to do with Islamist objectives is just not based in reality.
div > p:nth-of-type(2) > a”>HJS-Deck-200324-Final.pdf (henryjacksonsociety.org)
Our own government is waving in literally millions of immigrants – many from violent Third World countries – and not doing any ‘distinguishing’ at all. A similar thing happened with the grooming gangs. “Let’s not talk about the backgrounds of the perpetrators”.
It’s all very well saying to angry and worried members of the public, “You need to distinguish between good immigrants & the bad ones”, but when the authorities – who are supposed to be protecting us – deliberately don’t do it, what do you expect the reaction to be? The whole thing is farcical.
Oh dear you self evidently can’t distinguish between legal and illegal migrants can you? The former are invited for specific reasons.
Now separately what controls would you put in place to stop those here temporarily – visiting family, having a holiday etc – overstaying? We can’t be sure but quite poss more come this way then via a rubber dingy.
Welfare payments only for those whose parents born in country; no immigration for people payed less than twice national average wage, all criminals deported even if have family; no visas for families of students, national training strategy for jobs, scholarships for all people obtaining 4 Grade A “A” levels in Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology provided read Engineering, Science or Maths degrees; all illegal immigrants to undertake three years hard labour – labouring on construction sites and farms 6 days a week 10 hours a day- work clothes, food and lodging only. Post WW2 immigrants to Australia spent two years in logging camps.
When you say that governments don’t do it (distinguish between good and bad immigrants) this is probably because it is absolutely impossible to do so.
LOL NOT impossible for White SUPREMACIST like him. Just let in White immigrants who are all good immigrants and problem solved eh?
What do Muslims think of Jews, Hindus, treatment of women and homosexuals, freedom of speech and Jihad ?How comptible are those views with Western society?
What do White people think of Black People and Black Jews and non white people and are these views compatible with Western society values?
It’s a ridiculous over-stretching of the term. I’m finding it hard to keep reading after this, but I’ll plough on.
Don’t these pieces ever get reviewed or edited to remove such glaring errors ?
Precisely. Can’t understand this. AR is rightly critical of our ludicrous immigration policies, but here uses the kind of language as Starmer to describe outraged Brits utterly betrayed by the State – with not even a mention of what *provoked* the riots. Bizarre.
Same old Hellenes. – how did that autocorrect? is Helenes even a word?
I stopped reading at that point and came straight to comments. What is the point of reading an article which indulges in hyperbole? It makes it impossible to trust any other ‘facts’ in it.
‘Uncontrolled spontaneous’ demonstrations, as AR has previously described them.
Must admit, I rolled my eyes and stopped reading at that point.
They may be culturally different but the vast majority of the clandestini are fleeing Muslim rule. They do not hate ours or anyone elses ways of life. They are being used by people who do – particularly labour, greens and other lefties but the snobbish end of the tory party too. I expect we can count on many of the new arrivals to help when the time comes to push back against those who hate our society. They came fleeing failing nations w/o the rule of law – if we can re-impose the rule of law and standards befitting a civil society i expect the migri will be very much on our side.
Re: J Watson below:
I expect they were driven by despair and the migri were handy scapegoats – in that narrow sense i suppose the “pogrom” falsehood is understandable, but it is an inexcusable insult: To anyone killed in a pogrom, to the migri themselves and to the status of academics/medjahadeen everywhere, but particulalry the UK. AR should not be allowed near a subscription based site – NME or the tabloids is more his natural habitat.
What do you think their views are of Jewish people and Israel ?
They were literally attacking mosques and migrant homes. Pogrom seems the appropriate word. And the killer wasn’t even a Muslim.
Pogrom. If only the author had read even a little on Germany 1933-39, maybe they’d understand what one was. This was a shameful essay.
That phrase was very poorly chosen, but the rest of the article is excellent.
That’s all lovely, but this article completely fails to mention the difficulties faced with deporting migrants if their claims are deemed inadmissible or are rejected after having been examined. What if their countries don’t agree to take them back? I read an article in the German media over the weekend which stated that some countries of origin require their citizens to give their consent to being deported back there. Completely absurd.
If deportation is impossible (and, at the moment even bringing migrants back to the first EU country they set foot in according to the Dublin regulation is nigh-on impossible – although the upside of that is that you can ignore all the Remainers still arguing that the small boat problem wouldn’t exist if you hadn’t left the EU), then all discussion about what rules we should have for accepting migrants either under the title of asylum or because we need their skills and manpower is useless.
Until you can efficiently and effectively deport migrants with no right to stay then the only things you can do are make your country as unattractive as possible (see Denmark) and ensure the protection of Europe’s outer borders. Which is currently very controversial with the current legal framework. Some countries have been pushing migrants back for ages (either openly, or pretending they aren’t); Finland’s making a stab at being able to push back migrants within the existing rules, although who knows how that will end up.
There’s talk in Germany of suspending the application of the asylum rules rather than leaving the ECHR and using that time to properly reform the legal framework. If that does happen, then you can bet your bottom dollar Europe’s border protection will suddenly become much more efficient as no-one wants to get stuck with the people pouring out of Germany or looking for alternatives.
Until now, we’ve all been operating on the assumption that as long as Germany keeps up its current utopian approach then we can all just carry on hoping that most migrants will just clear off there in the end. It was always going to be the case that Germany changing its tune would be the trigger for a larger scale change and I think we are there.
All other countries (including the UK) still pursuing a lax/overgenerous approach better watch what Germany does and follow its lead promptly – failure to do so will mean that lots of people will be heading your way to seek better conditions as the probability that they’ll just give up and head back to Afghanistan or wherever is basically zero.
If there is no large scale deportation or remigration (which is quite unlikely), the story of the next few years will be a race to the bottom in terms of what states offer migrants to try and avoid ending up with the hassle of them – kind of like a contintent-wide game of tossing the hot potato. And there’ll be lots of fun with rising crime by migrants outside of any system who are trying to survive.
Fun, fun, fun.
There is talk about re-establishing diplomatic relations with Assad, that whilst nauseous is driven by desire for returns.
Informing AS’s that once the situation in your home country improves you will be returned and your right here is temporary may also have a big impact.
Much though is in the practical application of such policies. The failure of last 14 yrs is to focus on slogans and not detailed problem solving and delivering practicalities.
It was (and is) also a massive failure to discredit anyone who was sceptical about the developments from 2015 onwards as Nazis/far right etc. If a more open public discussion about this issue had been allowed to happen at an earlier point, we would not have this huge panic now and the dreaded far right parties would not be as popular as they are now.
It’s a pity we have to share society with so many people who are so slow on the uptake but c’est la vie.
Sceptical about what KE? The legal migration increase or the surge in illegal part related to conflict in the middle east – 2015 saw a massive people movement from Syria.
The issue is those who feel net legal migration too high more often then refuse to be honest about the trade-offs. I’me sceptical you really want that conversation. The issue on illegal migration is we’ve had leaders use it as an electoral weapon who never moved beyond slogans.
The uncontrolled immigration of hundreds of thousands of people from cultures with very very different value systems to ours, which anyone with more IQ points than fingers realised immediately was going to result in huge socio-political difficulties and tensions over decades and needed to be talked about.
It’s incredible how the Brexit referendum can be criticised as reckless and shortsighted in view of the massive effects of the vote while fundamentally changing the makeup of a country’s population and possibly threatening its long term internal cohesion (via a large scale abuse of legal instruments which did not contemplate the situation we have in 2024 when they were adopted) seems to be something that the existing population shouldn’t ever be asked about.
You’re raging into the wind KE and not engaging with the reasons legal migration increased post Brexit. It is legit to be angry about that, but you have to engage with why that happened too. It’s because the need for labour in specific sectors didn’t change and no national policies were adopted to get it to change. The Govt also panicked about inflation even more if costs rose due to lack of workforce. So we imported from outside EU and had to allow families to join them thus increasing the total. Doh! What a Brexit dividend and because Brexit was built on half truths and lies.
So let’s be hearing more about what you’d do to address the issues in the specific sectors if you truly are serious about addressing the problem. I don’t think you are. It’s all performative.
This problem did not arise 14 years ago. The Labour Party introduced free movement in 2004 as an exercise in gerrymandering.
But hey, what’s so great about history that you shouldn’t rewrite it, eh?
Exactly. We lived with over a decade of totally uncontrolled free movement of people (families not just workers) from Europe. The second catastrophe was the collective failure to challenge the monstrous big state lies that migration delivered only growth and had zero impact upon housing schools and NHS. The third disaster was the weakness of Johnson & Rishi in permitting the final tsunami of 4 million legal migrants. It is forgotten that the gates were opened to try to rescue the economy from the depridation of a 2 year lockdown. But no matter, no excuse. It was a calamitous, weak decision that immolated the Conservatives in 2024. Aris sounds right. European politics is quaking and changing v fast – German borders may close. Starmer has very little time before the tsunsmi hits him.
Free movement in EU introduced in 92 HB. Guess which party in charge then? Come on for goodness sake sharpen up. Too often this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Your elite US Graduate education should have you more on top of this stuff.
I think what you meant is the Lisbon treaty allowed additional nations into the EU and that generated additional free movement.
Blaming those who pointed out the problems of the policies that caused this disaster ir really annoying. Frankly there is a pattern amongst the so-called elites: they adopt a position that fails under the slightest reasonable scrutiny. Then the elites fund endless faux NGOs to pretend that the obsession requires ignoring history, reality, physics, and most of all the well being of the national population. Then when their grand global policy fails as predicted by anyone paying attention, the toadies come out to blame the victims of their ridiculous policies.
Too much of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion type theme in that twaddle for me UR. Too vague, unspecific, allowing you to personally determine who is/isn’t in this elite. Almost Maoist.
That said have a look at what’s happened to the distribution of wealth and the v wealthy. There may be some form of elite but it ain’t where you think it is.
There’s absolutely nothing of the sort in there, you’re projecting (again!). Both the captalist and progressive “elites” have done very well from the folly of mass immigration.
It’s hardly a “conspiracy theory”, the likes of Gramsci, Marcuse and others have explained what actions are need to undermine a society/democracy. Why are so called progressives happy to align themselves with the capitalist class. Maybe because there’s much money and status attached to it, then again the progressive class have always been self serving hypocrites.
Or perhaps we assert that people in small boats in the Channel are merely recreational sailors who have got into difficulties and should therefore be rescued and immediately returned to their ‘home port’?
Which port is that then? I think you might have noticed they aren’t sailing out of Calais harbour.
And if we forcibly tried to offload them at Calais quay what do you think then happens?
Not engaging with the real world are you and just all rant. We’d all like it stopped. The simpleton views on how to do that exactly why it hasn’t been addressed.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the simpleton view may be more effective than than the ‘oh so clever’ bureaucrats might think?
There will be a nearby French port all along the Channel coast. We already pay the French to limit illegal immigration so they can hardly argue about a few rescued recreational sailors. We only need to do it a few times before the people smuggler gangs give up.
Foolish thinking. Classic populism. All play to the gallery and zero practical applicability.
If we tried it we’d just be blocked off the French coast, channel tunnel and ports closed to us, migrants helped onto boats heading our way, and within hours we’d capitulate. You are naive in the extreme.
Right….>15 years of the best and brightest enabling this nightmare across the West, but blame those out of over who were ignored and suppressed for lack of nuance.
Missing the point UR – it’s not about blaming those who would welcome lower net migration, I would myself. It’s about being honest to those folks about the complexity and choices that need to be navigated to deliver that. I assume because you are subscribe you are interested in public affairs. Therefore spend that time wisely understanding further the nature of the problem and how we tackle it effectively. If it’s just for a bit of keyboard ranting then fine but expect your points to be contested and picked apart.
No take Illegal immigrants back no aid; simples
We aren’t giving any aid to Taliban or Assad as just two examples. Not so simples.
Do you want a bet
I believe the Danish use unorthodox (and controversial) deportation centers for rejected migrants. How humane and ethical these measures are – and how they apply this exactly, is another question of course. You will have to look into it.
Also, the Dublin Regulation does not apply to Denmark as they negotiated an opt-out.
Ah, I didn’t know Denmark had got out of that. Why though – if it worked, it would be advantageous to them, wouldn’t it?
But it’s all moot at this point because Dublin is essentially dead law.
So I’m not a specialist on the subject but as far as I know Denmark has several specific opt-outs from EU law and supra national regulations (Maastricht treaty) which gives them greater leeway to enact their own asylum and migration policy. So I think it is related to that.
Excellent points.
Until you can efficiently and effectively deport migrants with no right to stay then the only things you can do are make your country as unattractive as possible (see Denmark) and ensure the protection of Europe’s outer borders. Which is currently very controversial with the current legal framework. Some countries have been pushing migrants back for ages (either openly, or pretending they aren’t); Finland’s making a stab at being able to push back migrants within the existing rules, although who knows how that will end up.
This is why Rwanda scheme was so important. Rwanda would take them.
Rwanda was meant as a deterrent so that people wouldn’t bother going to Britain. After a couple of planes had departed, numbers of people arriving by small boats, I am sure, would have decreased. With a wholly dysfunctional legal framework, the only thing you can do to control the flow is to take measures which change the migrants’ risk calculation in trying to get to your country.
Except we won’t find out how effective Rwanda would have been now because you’re governed by Labour who a) appear to contain large numbers of people who are chronically slow on the uptake and b) are worse than the Tories, which is hard to believe but true.
It’s going to be interesting watching the “certainty” of these opposition idiots who have spent a minimum of 14 years “p*ssing and moaning” and now having to achieve anything. Your option a).
I am particularly irritated by the fact that we had already spent hundreds of millions on the Rwanda experiment and just when we appeared to be about to receive an answer as to whether it would work or not it was cancelled wasting our investment. If only Sunak had deferred until November. If it was successful he might have gained enormously.
We needed a deterrent. We need a push at UN to reform the outdated refugee and asylum laws with US and EU. We need bolder lawyers to explain how totally unseaworthy craft – a criminal offence under maritime law ,- are permitted to leave French beaches.
Surely England is already unattractive to migrants?
Isn’t England steeped in racism? Full of people bloated with white privilege (after all, look at the polite way Ms Letby was arrested, no foot on neck)? Indelibly stained by colonialism? Her institutions, even the Church, institutionally racist?
Why would anyone want to come to England?
Money
Who cares if they “don’t take them back”? They aren’t our responsibility. They are in the country illegally. Send them back.
Yep much in this and one can see Starmer heading in these directions.
Author notes the folly of Brexit – ‘…exchanged economically productive European workers for low-waged extended families from the developing world’ although given the Unherd subscriber base he avoids explicit link. The Authors advocacy of re-harmonising with the EU Migration & Asylum Pact is similar example of the harm done to our crucial European relations by Right wing sloganeers that can be corrected.
One thing to be cautious of though is the quote of 1.6m migrants economically inactive. 700k are international students bringing fees into the UK. 150k are asylum seeker processing backlog and we don’t let them work. And then there are the families of those who’ve come here on legal visas – linked to the ‘extended families’ point. Nonetheless there is a number here that is significant but it doesn’t help to exaggerate.
Point made in the article was about costs of supporting migrants.
It was not about who they are.
Reality is that giving visas to low wage migrants and allowing them to bring families is not economically viable.
You can not afford housing and food for family on minimum wage.
You can just about make a case for work credits for natives of uk.
But not for immigrants.
Why did Home Office sign them off AF? Under likes of Braverman and Patel too.
I agree with you that the policy in low income sectors can be heavily criticised, but your plan to cover those roles another way in the short term? And your medium term plan to address the shortage properly? That’s the discussion we should be having if we want to address this. I’m never clear you capable of moving onto the real solutions.
Let’s start with mass deportations.
To where and how?
You ever landed an aeroplane at Kabul airport without permission? Fancy that as a job? Guess where you’d end up, if you even got to land?
Your comment not alone in being so ignorant of the complexity in getting return agreements it’s no wonder we have a problem.
Why should West accept any Muslim migrants at all?
There are many Muslim countries and many are very rich.
Muslims should settle there.
Just because countries like Saudi Arabia don’t want them should not be our problem.
Well that’s problem solved then AF. Thanks for that brainwave
So how does one stop what is an invasion that was enabled by corrupt leaders?
I don’t believe the use of Invasion or Corrupt leaders terminology helpful. It makes those who need to understand what it’s going to take think there is a simple solution and demonises people at the same time. Doesn’t reflect well on you either.
A few things we have to do and can – I) hit the smugglers harder with anti-terrorism powers ii) renegotiate data sharing and police collaboration with European partners iii) multilateral working to secure deals on Med migration tackling the bases in Libya iv) policy comms to ASs that you go back once your country stabilises – it’s temporary v) more deals for returns vi) investment in quicker processing and more decent holding centre accommodation vii) much more mature discussion with our public about what it’s going to take viii) economic levers used sensitively but firmly with likes of Turkey and a couple of other States
Actually, Muslim countries do have many more refugees/ asylum seekers than us. Jordan and Lebanon as two examples.
Lebanon was the Paris on the Mediterranean until it accepted too many refugees that had been purged from Jordan after an attempted coup.
In 1968 Jordan had to fight the refugees it had generously let settle after they murdered the president and attempted to murder the King in a move to take over the government.
So you agree with the facts I present then? I was merely refuting the assertion that refugees don’t go to Muslim countries.
Also, many of the refugees who come to the UK are Christian not Muslim, often persecuted by their government. Especially Iranians. Rather than threatening our Christian culture they are in many places sustaining otherwise dwindling churches.
Considering asylum seekers go `home’ to the countries they were fleeing from once status has been granted and they are now in recipients of benefits – their status and benefits should be withdrawn, and they should be stopped at the airport gate upon return and sent back to their place of origin.
There are several dozen uninhabited islands off the UK coast, facilities should be built on them and all illegal migrants should be moved to them until processed rather than let loose on an unsuspecting population.
End mass migration permanently, and begin mass deportations. It’s the only way left to save Europe from another dark age.
Or make illegal immigration/overstaying a criminal offence with a minimum 5 year sentence and release them on bail between conviction and sentencing
Yes, a moratorium for 200 years or so until global populations from the third world stabilise and decline like in the rest of the world.
It was the SDP would do – http://www.sdp.org.uk/immigration
Yes. I’ve said it before: end immigration globally. This is the 21st Century. Leave the countries that can’t seem to manage themselves to themselves to figure it out. All the aid given them has resulted in enriching the criminals running these sh*thole places. Perhaps the people living there will have had enough and do something about it.
Where you taking them to DL? You driving the bus into Kabul central? Don’t book a ticket back as suspect they’ll hang onto you.
Sloganeering does not a practical policy make.
Many come from hot countries. Make them labour out of doors in Northumbria on the hills like upland farmers. Carrying bales of hay to ewes when they are lambing.
“Starmer’s Labour actively and rightly campaigned against the Conservative Party’s bizarre and unnecessary liberalisation of legal immigration…” This is a fanciful interpretation of the Labour manifesto, which focused almost entirely on “stop the boats” but was very vague about what it would do in relation to the vast majority of immigration, which is not via small boats on the English Channel. It is possible to comment on the failures of Conservative immigration policy, without having a better policy, and that is exactly Labour’s position. In reality, Labour’s immigration extremists include the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary.
Great idea. Doubt it’ll happen. Starmer’s gang are maniacs.
It would at least be comforting to think that such a well reasoned line of argument would even reach Starmer’s inbox. But it all flies very contrary to Guardian/BBC groupthink and hence the way the government’s mind works. Labour have little time left to be SEEN to be doing something more then “smashing the gangs”.
‘…the activist-led tendency of the British legal system to consider asylum applications from countries such as, until recently Albania or as Starmer himself observed, Bangladesh, almost uniformly recognised by other European countries as safe.’
Que bono.
Labour should…. Labour must…
But almost certainly won’t.
Fantastic analysis. The points about the purposes and the duties of a government are unarguable. And the recommendations around migration are unimpeachable. However, my contention is, the analysis and the various exortations directed at Starmer are destined to fall on deaf ears – this government will not behave that way because that is not who they are, that much is already clear. Instead, they are resolved to accepting massive unpopularity by plowing through with what they believe is the right thing – which essentially boils down to a combination of a re-run of Osbornite pain on the economy, and Blairite liberalism but this time directed at global rather than British culture, all marinaded in a sauce of Thatcherite stubbornness. I now think they genuinely believe the national malaise will all turn around in their favour to grant them a second term if they do the ‘unpopular’ things – nonsense narratives of course because there is no reason to expect different medium or long term outcomes than the last time those strategies were tried, however they are being egged-on by various figures from the past, ranging from Blair to Clarke.
This is the idea that doing the same thing over and over again, you’ll get a different result–Yes, madness.
“…errors are better rectified than lamented: all that need be done is allow the visas granted to low-wage migrant workers to expire without renewal…”
The problem with this is the sheer numbers of people disappearing into the UK’s burgeoning casual sector economy once their visas expire, because there is hardly any policing of visas, the scale of the problem is so big. There is already evidence that UK population is a couple of million higher than the census figures because of people having slinked away into the shadows.
ID cards. Labour is pondering and I reckon UK gets there in due course. Starmer conscious of being painted as more authoritarian so treading carefully. Quite why the Right been resistant for so long somewhat bizarre. Makes one think the Right actually welcomes the continuation of a black economy driven by illegal workers undercutting others.
You may be comfortable with ID cards in the hands of a government who will casually jail people for a tweet, but I can’t say I am. No trust, see.
It’s about choices isn’t it. I think your answer, which is not illegitimate, an example of why the problem is much more difficult than slogans about desires.
How will ID cards prevent people from engaging in criminal activity or working illegally? Just another pointless load of lawfare that penalises the already law abiding.
Inspectors turn up and they either have the ID or not. Means employer can’t claim ignorance. With heavy fines it’d choke off a lot. And of course stop abuse of other public services too.
It wouldn’t stop everything I grant you, but it’d make heck of a dent.
Fairly sure it’s more than 2 million.
The fact that the government/civil service either doesn’t know (incompetence) or won’t say (deceit) what the actual population of the UK is tells you all you need to know.
Absolutely correct in all of its assertions, this article should be compulsorily read and digested by all government and civil service officials immediately.
‘For people who derive their legitimacy from the eternal vigilance against fascism, our liberal governing class has done everything in its power to ensure its return in some postmodern form.’
Yes, this is a big part of it. I believe the technical term for this petty tribalism is ‘Reactive Devaluation’—where extreme ingroup bias and the demonization of the ‘other’ blind people to the flaws in their own politics. Any idea or policy associated with the ‘right’ is automatically rejected, while its inverse is doubled down on in a ritualistic manner.
I also get the sense that people are starting to grasp the existential, ‘zombie apocalypse’ nature of the crisis. Spend a few hours on X, and the scale of it is…dystopian. At some point, even the most ardent holdouts in the ‘but why does it matter’ camp will have to acknowledge the reality
Social democracy requires a high-trust society. Mass immigration obliterates social trust and therefore undermines the basis on which social democracy rests.
Civil institutions like Churches, trade unions, charities, and conservation groups boost social trust and I would hope to see them have a revitalised role in British public life.
I’m a social democrat because I’m conservative, and I’m conservative because it’s the only way to be a social democrat.
This appears also to be the position of the Danish social democratic government. I hope Labour will learn these lessons from them, though I’m very doubtful they will.
Exactly. I struggle to think of a ‘multicultural’ society that hasn’t required some degree of authoritarian government to hold it together: the USSR, Zaire, Yugoslavia, Singapore.
I largely agree, but not about Trade Unions or even the Church as boosting trust.
The problem for the PM is perhaps that he associates popular with populist.
No harm at all in looking to enact popular policies well thought through. That’s democracy.
The Populist has little intention of enacting practical policies but rather wants to weaponise the issue.
Important difference.
If politicians are looking into mass deportation, then the ongoing process by Pakistan of forcing a million Afghan refugees North across the border could noted. Many of these Afghans are the second generation to be born on Pakistani soil, but that counts for nothing. This is an astonishing action, and hardly seems to have made the news in the UK.
I’m guessing that is because the politicians and media don’t want to give the native UK population any ideas…
Excellent article. One could easily replace ‘Britain’ and ‘Starmer’ with ‘Canada’ and ‘Trudeau’ as the immigration problem, and the anger arising from it, is so similar. For years, any attempts to address immigration issues have been quickly stifled by simply yelling “Racist!” or “Xenophobe!”. The recent success of the AfD and the BSW (it’s only been a party for five minutes) signaled a growing dissatisfaction with failed immigration polices. As usual the progressive’s response to the canary in the coal mine is not “Oops” but “Shut up that damn bird”
The biggest giveaway is that the math doesn’t match the policy narrative. We are told that elevated immigration is needed to alleviate a shortage of skilled workers. Businesses in Canada still squeal about a worker shortage. We are told that we need to boost the population to finance public pensions for the retiring Boomers but meanwhile the public health and welfare services are overloaded, and who’s paying for the pensions when the migrants retire? It’s like a Ponzi scheme. The usual progressive response is to make “the Rich” pick up tab but everyone knows there’s a point when the Rich don’t pay – they leave.
The contribution of an activist judiciary to the problem is as bad in Canada as it is in Britain. Legal and constitutional arguments abound about what can be done about it but perhaps the simplest response is simply adopt an immigration policy that says “You can’t come here from any place we can’t send you back to”. Activist judges deny deportations back to Elbonia? Then deny entry to Elbonians. Krapistan won’t take back their own? Then no entry for Krapistanians until the situation changes.
Starmer faces the same choice as the rest of the progressives: dismiss ugly anti-immigrant riots as a far-Right fringe aberration or recognize them as a growing symptom of failed policy.
Refreshing to see unlimited-immigration bleeding hearts labelled ‘extremists’ for once, in place of Brits who take the antediluvian view that a state exists to serve its own citizens first.
“… well-meaning but poorly-planned energy policies …”
The UK’s Energy Policies are primarily focused on controlling the climate, and no amount of planning, however ‘good’ will improve our Energy supplies, unless you mean cancelling most of the NET Zero policies due to their inability to provide what was promised. The Economists weren’t given good data: the Laws of Physics cannot be repealed, not even if it makes you feel good, and worthy.
Windfarms, solar farms, the Hydrogen Economy, heat pumps, EVs: they all need reassessing, and their targets reduced, by appreciable amounts.
Aris Roussinos ignores completely the European country that sorted the mass immigration invasion facilitated by Merkel in 2016. That country is Switzerland and its Direct Democracy model allowed its citizens to hold a referendum a few weeks after Merkel’s mass invasion that instructed the Swiss government to stop it immediately. It did stop immediately. This is why every Western country needs Swiss Direct Democracy. It puts the people in charge, not the politicians.
Yes they did signal they didn’t want to accept lots of the displaced Syrian refugees at that time. However they then later voted to NOT end EU free movement when that was put to them.
The referendum in Switzerland are also advisory and that is part of the political culture with the population understanding that. Much of course depends on how the question is set out.
50k+ illegal migrants were reported as arriving in Switzerland 22-23. So voting for them not to come does not just make it happen. Switzerland does though have ID cards which means it picks up sooner when they are working illegally and can deport.
And the lesson is…
EH Carr was not some right wing nutter. More like a Bolshevik sympathiser. But I don’t think Starmer, as a human rights lawyer, will be interested in (a) letting the visas granted to low-wage migrant workers expire without renewal. Or (b) ending the system whereby taxpayers maintain nearly 1.7 million unemployed migrant workers at an annual cost of £8 billion, as too many activists have jobs at stake.
The universities are partly to blame in enabling families of overseas students to come. That has now stopped, but I can’t see Labour activists not rebelling when we start expelling those whose visas have expired. And if we don’t, then a new Tory/Reform Govt will.
This is a very well-reasoned article
Why is this ‘Denmark’ solution needed? Well this is just one example of how DWP is abused – posted by David Atherton on X:
“Another DWP con is, single male arrives, gets right to remain, marries. Then first wife arrives with the all their kids, lives in a different house so claims as single parent, because polygamy is allowed.
“First wife automatically gets right to remain, arrives or gets pregnant, free maternity, housing, schools for kids she’s brought with her, whole family’s healthcare, mother can’t/won’t work, won’t learn English, won’t integrate.
“She’s pregnant with her anchor baby so that’s 4 years paid benefits – first when she’s pregnant then 3 years caring for anchor baby.
“That’s costs us taxpayers £80000 to £100000 just because her husband got here and got right to remain & hitched to another woman.
“She’s unskilled so probably won’t ever work as 80% of immigrant women don’t.”
There are now sufficient people of that culture in the UK to reproduce that very culture by influencing if not staffing the public services and policymaking channels that support and facilitate it.
I suspect there is more recognition of the reality of this cultural reproduction in France and Germany where the nationalist Right has a stronger political form than in the UK.
“Most asylum seekers are economic migrants who don’t have legitimate grounds for asylum. We have a massive social as well as an economic agenda to transform Britain, let’s just hope the British don’t get in the way.”
Home Secretary David Blunkett in a Speech to the Social Market Foundation, London, 26 June 2002.
https://web.archive.org/web/20020816044209/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/reu/speech_SMF.htm
How is Denmark dealing with the issue of returns?
Also, are we supposed to believe that the proponents of mass immigration didn’t see this problem coming? As so often in the recent past, Those With Good Intentions (aka the overclass) have not been particularly honest. To say the very least.
It’s well past the time when we should start calling them out as the liars they are; with such classic school-yard phrases as “you’re a liar!” or “you’re lying to me, again!”
The issue is a policy that undermines the interests of the native population. Is that seriously in question? When people insist on pushing initiatives that are counter to the interests of the citizens, one must eventually consider the possibility that this is intentional.
Of course it’s intentional, our economy couldn’t function without immigrants.
Well, we used to manage without them well within living memory. But, if we can’t manage without them now then let the migration be TEMPORARY, for a few months or years, like it is in sensible countries such as Switzerland. What we have, unaccountably, is a system by which pretty well anyone who manages to set foot in the country – legally or otherwise – gets to stay PERMANENTLY.
“… anti-migrant pogroms …”
Pogrom – ‘an organised massacre of helpless people.” [Merriam-Webster online dictionary]
How can this writer expect to be taken seriously when he misuses [deliberately?] this word. Irresponsible at best; calculatedly misleading at worst.
The only people who get massacred on a regular basis, are the native population.
The problem Starmer faces is that lower immigration would harm the living standards of UK citizens. An increasingly elderly population of retired ” Baby Boomers”is supported by a shrinking number of working age tax payers, without immigrants to fill vacancies and increase the tax base the UK faces a future of failing public services, higher taxes and ever increasing age of retirement.
This article fails to distinguish between asylum applicants arriving by various methods (numbered in the tens of thousands) and the much greater number arriving with work visas to fill particular vacancies ( hundreds of thousands). These are two separate, almost unrelated issues and lumping them together doesn’t help explain the issues,.
“failing public services, higher taxes and ever increasing age of retirement.”
We’ve had mass immigration for 25 years, and it hasn’t stopped any of these thing happening regardless.
First rate in every sense.
Please, will journalists ever grow up? Pogroms happened in Russia and elswhere east of the Rhine. Shtetls’s burned, civilians put to the sword, the worst excesses of Cossak and Prussian culture indulged. The Spanish went for leave, die or convert. (But for God’s sake leave the acequias in good order!) The protestors after the Southport murders were mostly morons, some vile racist right wingers, but all people in the grip of what was called after WW2, by thinkers way over a journo’s grade, the “politcs of cultural despair”. You can’t say that about the vile racist left wingers who support hamas, mass migrations and “terrorists inc”. Since the mid/late 90s their’s has been the politics of cultural jubilation. The few grown ups remaining can draw succour from the fact violent and racist ideologies are ultimately self defeating due to human progess/better angels of our nature etc etc. Like Marvel or DC villains the likes of Tommy Robinson- Yaxley and Keir Starmer-Daddy’s-Hyphen-Money will always be with us. They will also always be opposed by the number of good men and women, which though large does fluctuate over time.
You are right that words like progrom (and there are many others, nazi, far right, phobe this and that etc) have been weaponised, thus losing their original meaning. But what you are not seeing is the riots, were instigated by far left factions, like AntiFa and Hope not Hate. In the case of Southport, a palestinian, part of an organised group. In fact a lot of “riots” were incited by these people infiltrating, posing as “far right”. You may be surprised at how few people in Britain are “far right”. The sad thing is, I agree, that the draconian anti British measures taken by Starmer are actually creating far right movements where there were none before.
The Orwellian tactic of driviing the legitimate term, “illegal immigrant” from the public square has worked in the,sense that pushing a lie hard enough and long enough can damage one’s ability to reason.
The whole point of the international movement behind unlimited, subsidized unlawful immigration has been to subvert democracy. It has been all over the West, it has been deliberate, and it has been organized. The simultaneous betrayal by elected officials has not been spontaneous or accidental.
My suggestion would be re-thinking this ‘human right’ thing. What may have been a noble and original idea (linked to Christianity) has become a very lucrative industry, brimming with hypocricy, and what is now essentially a list of boutique demands of the loudest and pushiest individuals or groups.
We saw during covid how these rights can be spat in the face easily so we may as well re-define what these rights are for and who they are supposed to protect.
Your closing point misses the point: our ruling elites have become what they claim to be so committed against.
Let all those who consider migrants have a right to live here to do in their homes and at their expense. Starmer says there is a black hole in the finance, then those who support immigration pay for it.
Far too many have become hung up on the the foolish word “pogrom”. Apart from that one word it’s an excellent, informative, and oddly hopeful article.
I’m not sure your unemployed immigration stats add up. The source being GB news. Not being economically includes international students and the retireed.
Excellent, well reasoned article.