Downing Street has rejected suggestions that Sir Keir Starmer was channelling similar language to that of former right-wing Tory politician Enoch Powell when the prime minister gave a speech on Monday calling for much tougher controls on immigration.
The Labour prime minister caused consternation among many left-wing MPs when he said that “we risk becoming an island of strangers” without new rules to curb the “squalid chapter” of rising migration.
Critics pointed out that his words carried echoes of those used by Powell in his controversial “rivers of blood” speech in 1968, in which he warned of a future where white people “found themselves made strangers in their own country”.
Asked about Powell, a Downing Street spokesperson said that Starmer would “reject in its entirety the previous speeches made by that individual”.
He added: “The prime minister rejects those comparisons and absolutely stands behind the argument he was making that migrants make a massive contribution to our country, but migration needs to be controlled and needs to be fair.”
The spokesperson said it was clear that voters wanted ministers to cut net migration figures, which had “quadrupled” to record highs during the previous four years of the last Conservative government, putting pressure on housing and other public services.
“The British public rightly expects the government to get control of immigration in a way that the previous government lost control of immigration . . . and ensure that we’ve got a system based on fairness and control and get down the sky-high levels of immigration that we saw under the previous government,” he said.
Downing Street’s intervention came after several senior Labour figures had criticised Starmer’s language.
Sarah Owen, the Labour chair of the House of Commons women and equalities committee, who is of Malaysian-Chinese heritage, said: “Chasing the tail of the right risks taking our country down a very dark path. The best way to avoid becoming an ‘island of strangers’ is investing in communities to thrive, not pitting people against each other.”
Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, said he would not have used the phrase “island of strangers”. He told LBC: “The sort of language I use is different to the language used by others. That’s not the sort of words I would use.”
Asked earlier in the day if Starmer had echoed Powell’s words, home secretary Yvette Cooper said the phrasing was “completely different” given the prime minister’s overall backing for immigration.
“I don’t think it’s right to make those comparisons, I think it’s completely different,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“The prime minister said yesterday, I think almost in the same breath, he talked about the diverse country that we are and that being part of our strength. But he also talked about how immigration has to be properly controlled and managed, and it hasn’t been. I actually think it’s OK to have both those views.”
Policies in the immigration paper including raising the standards of English language required for all visas, increasing the time it takes for many applicants to gain citizenship from five years to 10, and raise foreign workers’ skills requirements to degree level outside of several key industries with major skills shortages.
