UK Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer continued his hardline rhetoric on migration over the weekend, admitting that the country has become “addicted to cheap” migrant workers to the detriment of young Britons. Yet the PM is reportedly on the cusp of a deal to open up more youth migration from the EU to Britain.
Despite the fervent backlash from the open borders wing of his left-wing Labour Party base, Prime Minister Starmer has doubled down on his tough talk on immigration as he seeks to fend off the rising popularity of Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK party.
Taking to social media on Saturday, the PM said: “For too long, Britain has been addicted to cheap overseas labour — while 1 in 8 of our own young people aren’t in education, employment or training.
“I’m putting our young people first, investing in skills they need and ending our dependence on foreign labour.”
“If you work here illegally or employ people who do, we’re coming for you. Illegal working raids are up 40%. And we won’t stop there,” Starmer added on Sunday.
The comments come after the left-wing leader drew the ire of progressives in the establishment media and backbenchers of his own party, who accused Starmer of supposedly playing into the hands of the so-called “far-right” by admitting that mass migration has failed to deliver on its key promise of producing economic benefits to Britons and risked turning the nation into an “island of strangers” if continued.
However, though this marked a significant rhetorical change, undercutting the decades-long establishment narrative, Starmer’s government has faced accusations of only pursuing half measures to confront the issue.
Indeed, Labour’s “white paper” on immigration merely said that numbers could drop by 100,000 by the end of the decade, likely meaning that millions more foreigners will be imported into the country under his watch. Gross immigration has soared to over a million following the ‘Boris wave’ post-Brexit liberalisation of immigration under the so-called Conservatives, so a reduction of 100,000 from such an unusually high level will not make a meaningful difference to the forces of change on the British population.
Despite vowing to put “our young people first” on Saturday, Starmer is also reportedly set to bring Britain back into the EU’s “youth mobility scheme” as part of his so-called “Brexit reset” with the bloc. The scheme would allow EU migrants between the ages of 18 and 30 to stay in the UK for up to three years.
While the government is reportedly seeking to put an annual cap on the number of those allowed in, critics have warned that it will merely exacerbate the issues of young Britons, who have faced particular struggles getting on the property ladder amid the migrant-exacerbated housing crisis.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “This scheme could open the floodgates to tens of thousands or more flooding into the country, including people who recently entered Europe illegally and then got citizenship.”
“Last week, Starmer said he wanted to clamp down on immigration, but he’s now on the verge of throwing open the doors. He is a disingenuous charlatan when it comes to our border security.”
Meanwhile, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, whose party has soared to the top of the polls amid growing anger over the government’s failures to crack down on immigration, has vowed to scrap Starmer’s EU “reset” if he is elected as the next prime minister.
“The whole thing is an abject surrender from Starmer and politically, something he will come to regret,” he told The Telegraph.
“A Reform government would undo all of this with legislation. We’d tell the EU that any agreements are no longer legally binding on the UK, because a general election has said so. That’s what Brexit was all about. It was about us governing ourselves, well or badly.”
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