The Prime Minister’s ‘island of strangers’ speech this week was ‘as politically stupid as it is morally bankrupt’, writes ANDREW FISHER
Enoch Powell and Keir Starmer: 57 years apart, but both pandering to the far right
It could all have been so different.
In 2020, Keir Starmer said, “We welcome migrants, we don’t scapegoat them.
“Low wages, poor housing, poor public services are not the fault of migrants … they’re political failure.
“So we have to make the case for the benefits of migration, for free movement.”
Yet in 2025, Keir Starmer was saying, “the damage [inward migration] has done to our country has been incalculable. Public services and housing access have been placed under too much pressure”.
Perhaps the 2020 version of Keir Starmer would dub him a “political failure”?
Rather than make the case for more investment in housing and public services, on Tuesday this week Starmer claimed that we “risk becoming an island of strangers”, talked of “forces pulling our country apart”, and made promises about being “tougher” on migration.
Starmer’s speech railed against higher migration, “a one-nation experiment in open borders” as he called it, inanely. But he didn’t allocate a single pound to boost medical training budgets, not a single penny to boost care workers’ wages, and there was no restoration of public funding for our universities which have, for more than a decade, been forced to attract high-paying foreign students to subsidise courses for British students.
When Enoch Powell made his notorious “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968, the Tory leader of the time, Edward Heath, did the decent thing and sacked him from the shadow cabinet.
Nearly 60 years later, a Labour Prime Minister – spooked by the rise of grifter Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform party – has made a speech with offensive echoes of Powell. And there has not been a murmur of dispute from a single member of Labour’s cabinet.
Lord Alf Dubs, a Labour peer and Jewish refugee to this country on the Kindertransport in 1939, said this week, “I’m unhappy senior politicians are using language reminiscent of Powell and I’m sorry Starmer used some of those phrases.”
Veteran London Labour MP Diane Abbott described it as, “A shameful day in British politics and a shameful day for the Labour party. It will not end well for either.”
Gavin Barwell, the former Conservative MP for Croydon Central, posted, “The current attempt by many in politics and the media to impugn most/all migrants – my friends, my neighbours, my colleagues at work – is utterly disgusting.”
Lord Barwell could easily be describing his former colleague, Chris Philp, the shadow Home Secretary, who has spent recent months parroting far-right myths, including that 48% of London’s social housing is occupied by people who are foreign. The true figure is 14%, and many of those will likely become British citizens in the future.
Philp’s lies: the MP for Croydon South spends much time frothing on social media, often with entirely false claims, such as this one
Both Labour and the Conservatives aping Reform is a reflection of their own feebleness, and the public can see it – which is why both parties lost heavily in this month’s local elections and are falling in the polls.
The reality is that all that Starmer’s offensive speech will have done is further alienate Labour supporters, while voters attracted to Reform will continue to support the real thing rather than the latter-day convert.
It is as politically stupid as it is morally bankrupt.
In a rather unsubtle act of defiance, Croydon East MP Natasha Irons, the first mixed-race MP representing our diverse borough, retweeted Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, who had said, “Generations of migrants have helped contribute to London’s success economically, socially and culturally. Thank you for what you have done – and continue to do – to make London the greatest city in the world.”
Mayor Sir Sadiq did the media rounds to distance himself from the increasingly toxic Prime Minister. In an LBC interview with James O’Brien, he said of Starmer’s speech: “The sort of language I use is different … that’s not the sort of words that I would use.”
Khan is the only London Mayor to be re-elected twice, and he is the first Muslim mayor of any major European city. He is testament to the nonsense that Starmer is talking, but more importantly so is London, and so is our corner of it: Croydon
Data from the last census shows that our borough has one of the highest percentages of mixed-race people anywhere in the UK, giving very visible lie to the claim that migrants make “an island of strangers” and don’t integrate.
Look at our England football team – a team of first- and second- generation migrants. Harry Kane, England’s record goalscorer and the national team’s captain, has an Irish father, who married an Englishwoman. Declan Rice, Jack Grealish and Harry Maguire also have Irish ancestry.
Today, my children’s local school has only 15% of children who identify as “White British”. My own children are mixed race, and those black, Asian and white and mixed heritage children are forming friendship groups as diverse as our borough itself.
Watching those melting-pot gaggles of children play as happily together as I did with my entirely white schoolfriends when I grew up makes me wonder: why would politicians seek to divide those children, demonise some, and tell others something of them is lost because of the heritage of others?
The people I feel estranged from in our society are not my diverse friends, family or neighbours, but the people filled with hate, and those cynical politicians who feed that hate. They are the ones failing to integrate by causing division.
Our communities, our borough, our city, and our modern British culture are the embodiment of a successful integrated and multicultural society – everything that Enoch Powell was scaremongering about 57 years ago, and everything that Powell got wrong.
Those who try to divide us are attacking the families and communities that have made us the diverse and friendly country that we are.
And unlike our charlatan political leaders, I believe that’s something of which to be proud.
From 2015 to 2019, Andrew Fisher, pictured right, was the Labour Party’s Director of Policy under Jeremy Corbyn. - Fisher is also the author of The Failed Experiment – and how to build an economy that works, and now writes columns for InsideCroydon, the i newspaper and is a regular pundit on BBC and Sky News programmes
- As well as his column, Andrew is also conducting podcast interviews, in-depth and informed with specialists and national figures, sharing their expertise with Croydon, and available on Inside Croydon’s Spotify channel
Andrew Fisher’s recent columns:
- It’s bad for Starmer’s Labour and worse for Badenoch’s Tories
- What a load of old rubbish! And that’s just inside the Town Hall
- Bad for disabled people. Bad for unemployment. Bad for growth
- Labour’s letting water companies take the pee with rising bills
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
Keir Starmer is whipping up xenophobia while just five years ago was virtue signalling his pledge to “defend migrants’ rights” and “calling for “an immigration system based on compassion and dignity”.
He became leader of the Labour party by joining a coup against Jeremy Corbyn, falsely labelling him as anti-Semitic. His government, our armed forces and UK “defence” industries are aiding and abetting the genocide in Gaza.
He’s a man without scruples, who bows down to Trump while putting the boot in to trans people and penalising people with disabilities for being disabled.
You can’t trust Labour
Keir Starmer’s Labour has become just as offensive as the Conservatives and Reform when it comes to immigration.
Humans have always migrated to new areas to try to build a better life. I left my home town in my teens and moved loads of times until I arrived where I am now. I have written before about rejecting the toxic racism of the far-right https://insidecroydon.com/2015/09/04/i-dont-come-from-round-here-i-am-a-migrant-too/
The UK has been a destination for people throughout its history and so much of what makes us proud of our nation was created with the help of migrants and children of migrants. If we really want to be proud to be British then we need to completely reject the nasty, racist, and ignorant attitudes that treat new arrivals as a problem. We should welcome those fleeing persecution and those who are building a new life in our diverse community.
We know that our country and Croydon is in a mess. The only way we will make things better is by working together to fix it. We should reject those politicians who are divisive and just pit one group of people against another. We need to work together with our neighbours and our communities to make this country and our town better for all of us.
Thanks for this, Andrew. I would like to believe that Sir Keir Starmer merely misspoke, that he was trying to make some point about the atomisation of society and this came out of his mouth and he sounded like he was saying that people from abroad were strangers here in a way that just happened to echo Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech, but it is difficult to hold onto that thought when we know that politicians’ statements are carefully calibrated and rehearsed to have the effect that they have.
Nigel Farage and his minions will feel validated by the PM’s choice of language and message. That is unfortunate and potentially dangerous.
I have no desire to be political, but I travel on buses in the north of the borough every day, and invariably hear a babel of voices on smartphones in a mixture of languages, none of them understandable even to each other. In these circumstances how can we feel part of one community? The term “island of strangers” seems to fit very well.
We must be in the midst of an enormous wave of inward immigration if such a high proportion of people on the streets are speaking in so many different tongues. All parties and all ethnicities are beginning to realise that this cannot go on.
Seems a bit hysterical to ressurect Enoch when all ‘Sir’ Starmer was announcing was an attempt to reign in record immigration. His ‘strangers’ comment resonated but surely that was about community cohesion and he had nothing to say about that unfortunately
Mr. Myers’ posts are always all about community cohesion.
I’m always impressed that people can speak multiple languages. If I get on a bus or a train abroad, I speak in my native language too, but that doesn’t mean I can’t speak the local language.
I understand Mrs Farridge speaks German.
Desire – from Latin
Political – from Greek
Travel – from French
North – from German
Ever since you were in your cot (Hindi) you have been learning words from other countries and cultures. From a cup of tea (Chinese) to a can of coca-cola (coca – Spanish, cola – West Afrikan). From an apple (Dutch) to an orange (Arabic). From morning (proto-Germanic) to noon (latin) to sunset (old Norse).
The fact that we have so many words in English that come from different parts of the world shows that our ancestors came from, and mixed with, people from many communities. And it wasn’t just the intelligentsia (Russian) and posh (Romani) people, it was also us ordinary citizens (Norman French).
This has been going on for thousands of years and throughout that time people have been having the equivalent experience as yours on a north Croydon bus. Some probably reacted like you but many others will have reacted like the poet W.B.Yeats who had been both an internal and external migrant during his life – “There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t yet met.”
Between BadEnoch, shades of Enoch and a man whose political hero is Enoch, we’ve got some right political leaders at the moment don’t we!
Another fine post. Thank you Andrew.
No denying Yeats could provide a good turn of phrase but not so sure his dallying with fascists and anti semites recommends him as a role model for diversity ?
If Yeats doesn’t do it for you, please allow me, then, to quote another poem, that I much prefer to Mr Starmer’s “Island of strangers” pathetic turn of phrase:
“No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.”
Maybe someone should put that in a frame and send it to him.
If ‘Sir’ Keir had anything positive to say about building communities I’d have been pleased. What hss he got to say about the sad news that 40% of some regions speak no English or a little. Drastic cuts to legal migration won’t have any effect on that
Chris, you shouldn’t believe the rubbish you read in the keep the middle class worried Daily HateMail or tell the plebs The Sun shines out racist Rupert Murdoch’s arse.
Far better to look at reliable and impartial sources such as The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. In March 2024 they said “In 2021, 90% (9 million) of migrants living in England or Wales self-reported speaking English without difficulty. Just over half (52%) spoke English as their main language, and a further 38% had another main language but spoke English well or very well (Figure 1). Only 1% of migrants said they could not speak English at all (142,000).”
That 2021 data came from the Census. Funny how The Sun and the Mail twisted it.
Your MP, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, urged Labour to ‘get a grip on immigration’, adding it ‘beggars belief that so many people in the country can’t speak English’.
The Conservatives were in government from May 2010 to July 2024, so Philp’s criticism of 2021 data is both hypocritical and an own goal. He’s the sort of person who’d silently break wind on the bus then loudly complain to the driver about the stench
You keep trying to smear me as a Sun-Mail-oholic, but you know I don’t read either. My daily reading starts with IC and includes the Grauniad, which is becolming more and more ‘progressive’ and the ‘regressive’ Torygraph. Plus the Beeb. By the way, who is Rupert Murdoch?