Labour’s landslide victory in July 2024 was not won with an agenda of aggressive immigration restrictions and divisive rhetoric, but with a promise to improve working and living conditions for all. That’s what resonated with voters.
Yet less than two years into power, Keir Starmer’s government has allowed its ambitious policy programme to be hijacked, buried under Reform UK’s immigration-obsessed rhetoric. Nigel Farage sits in the interviewer’s chair, dictating the parameters of British political debate, while the Labour leadership scrambles to respond with a copycat version of his exclusionary vision.
Right-wing politicians and influencers build moral panics around immigration because their careers thrive off division. The number of migrant people coming to the UK is far smaller, and their contribution to our society far greater, than they would have us believe.
