Anyone else want to do a Westminster press conference? Keir Starmer made it a hat-trick this afternoon when he gave his reply to the new immigration figures, following Kemi Badenoch’s comments yesterday and Nigel Farage’s response this morning. The Prime Minister’s team gave it the full No. 10 treatment: the flags, the lectern, Starmer looking statesmanlike as he used the trappings of office for all they were worth.
From the bully pulpit of Downing Street, he intoned gravely about the revised 2023 figures that showed net migration exceeding 900,000. The Tories, he said, were guilty of running an ‘open borders experiment’ by ‘design, not accident’. Policies were reformed ‘deliberately’ to ‘liberalise immigration’, with Brexit exploited ‘for that purpose’. At times, Starmer sounded almost mocking: ‘Global Britain – remember that slogan? A policy with no support and which they then pretended wasn’t happening’. By contrast, Labour offers ‘graft not gimmicks’.
The politics were solid then – but what about the actual policy?
He firmly fixed his guns on Badenoch too, following her mea culpa yesterday. ‘Now they want to wave it away with a simple “we got it wrong”. Well that’s unforgivable and mark my words, this government will turn the page.’ It was good, strong stuff and an obvious example of Morgan McSweeney’s enhanced influence on government. The politics of the move are clear: rejecting voters’ assumptions about Labour while pinning the blame – rightly – on the Tories. ‘It’s the red wall equivalent to the fiscal black hole’, remarked one government MP afterwards.
The politics were solid then – but what about the actual policy? The big headline claim from today’s press conference was that the UK has struck a new security agreement with Iraq. Starmer hailed it as a ‘world first’ and boasted of the potential of more intelligence sharing and joint law enforcement operations. It was the kind of policy his predecessor would have announced: a worthy initiative but hardly a game-changer in the battle to ‘stop the boats’.
The Prime Minister was happy to trumpet the absence of a Tory-style ‘tens of thousands’ cap as proof that at least, unlike the last government, he will take migration seriously. But in the absence of a concerted effort – like that mounted by James Cleverly – to bring numbers by a sizeable chunk, concerns about legal migration will remain one of voters’ top priorities.
For more on this story, listen to James on the latest Coffee House Shots podcast:
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