Sir Keir Starmer has rejected the comparison to Enoch Powell after he said the UK was at risk of becoming an “island of strangers” if migration does not come down.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said migrants have made a “massive contribution” to society but the Tories “lost control of the system” and that is the point he was making.
The remark has drawn criticism from Labour backbenchers, who have compared it to the late Conservative MP’s inflammatory 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech.
In the speech, Mr Powell imagined a future multicultural Britain where the white population would find themselves “strangers in their own country” as a result of migration.
Among those to make the comparison was the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who said on X that “Talk of an “island of strangers” shockingly echoes the divisive language of Enoch Powell”.
However, the prime minister’s spokesperson said: “The PM rejects this comparison. He said that migrants have made a massive contribution to society.
“It is also right to say that between 2019 and 2024, the previous government lost control of the system. Migration needs to be controlled, fair and people that come here should integrate.”
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Asked why the prime minister used such robust language, the spokesperson said he was not going to “shy away” from the issue of immigration and the British public want it to be reduced.
He added: “We have welcomed immigrants for decades, but it’s too high and must come down. Also, it’s important for our domestic skills system, which is good for our economy.”
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Sir Keir made the comment at a news conference in which measures were announced to curb net migration, including banning care homes from recruiting overseas, new English language requirements for visa holders and stricter rules on gaining British citizenship.
The package is aimed at reducing the number of people coming to the UK by up to 100,000 per year, though the government has not officially set a target.
The prime minister said he wanted a new system that was “controlled, selective and fair” and without fair rules “we are at risk at becoming an island of strangers”.
Enoch Powell was a Tory MP and the shadow defence secretary in the 1960s when a debate was raging about post-war immigration to Britain.
By the late 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Commonwealth citizens had exercised their legal right and settled in Britain, and it led to a quiet clampdown by the Labour government on immigration.
On 20 April 1968, Powell rose to his feet at a meeting of the Conservative Political Centre in Birmingham and declared Britons had “found themselves made strangers in their own country”.
Powell went on to say it had led to a shortage of hospital beds, school places, and “homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition”.
He was swiftly kicked out of the shadow cabinet.
Read more: Enoch Powell’s divisive Rivers of Blood speech in full
In a forward to a white paper detailing his plans, he also said migration has done “incalculable damage” to society.
The prime minister’s spokesperson also doubled down on this comment, saying the phrase was “rhetorical” rather than “literal” but it is a “fair argument to make”.
Net migration – the difference between the number of people immigrating and emigrating to a country – soared when the UK left the EU in January 2020.
It reached 903,000 in the year to June 2023 before falling to 728,000 in mid-2024. But that is still well above its pre-Brexit high of 329,000 in the year up to June 2015.
Sir Keir said parts of the UK’s economy “seem almost addicted to importing cheap labour” rather than investing in skills at home.
However, it is not clear how the government plans to boost the domestic workforce, amid a UK skills shortage and record numbers of people being out of work.
According to the ONS, there are 9.2 million people of working age in the UK who are economically inactive, including 1.8m 18-24 year olds.
The prime minister’s spokesperson said the government is “focused on upskilling British workers” and “especially helping young people in the job sector” but did not elaborate how.
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On care homes, he said, around 40,000 care workers came over on visas for jobs that did not exist, and companies can recruit from that pool.
Earlier, a number of Labour MPs came to the prime minister’s defence. Rother Valley MP Jake Richards said on X that Sir Keir is “absolutely right to warn of the risk of becoming an ‘island of strangers’.
“Millions of people across the country have similar concerns. This theme must be central to missions across immigration, employment, work and tackling neighbourhood deprivation,” he said.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick went further, telling Sky News he believes the UK “already is an island of strangers”, naming several areas “where we are a very divided and segregated society”.
