Good morning. YesterdayKeir Starmerunveiled the government’s immigration white paper, a significant policy intervention on a topic that is near the top of the public’s list of concerns. Yet today the debate is dominated not by the actual policies – even though they could cause big problems in some sectors of the economy, as we explainhere– but by the language Starmer used to defend them.
To recap, in one section ofhis speechyesterday Starmer said:
This generated huge controversy not just because of the argument (some people don’t accept the claim that high levels of immigration undermine social cohesion), but because the argumentand the languageecho whatEnoch Powellsaid inhis infamous Rivers of Blood speechin 1968. Powell said:
Starmer was clearly echoing Powell. But what is not clear is whether, for Starmer and/or the person who write the speech, this was intentional, unconscious (people can remember phrases without recalling where they came from), or complete coincidence (politicians more than 50 years apart, making a similar argument, by deploying the same, not-particularly-unusual word).
Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech was denounced as racist as soon as he delivered it (although not so much for his comments about native Britons finding mass migration unsettling, where many people would agree he had a point, but for his suggestion that it would culminate in violence, oppression and social collapse, where he has turned out to be hopelessly wrong) and it is still widely viewed as abhorrent. Yesterday Starmer was condemned by leftwingers for saying something that sounded Powellite.
But ministers have defended him. Asked about this on Newsnight last night,Jacqui Smith, the skills minister, said comparing the Starmer speech to Powell’s was “wrong”. She went on:
This morningYvette Cooper, the home secretary, was giving interviews, and on the Today programme she said she agreed with Smith. She went on:
Cooper said that, when Starmer talked about the rise of Britain being “an island of strangers”, he was referring to “the importance of recognising the impact … [of] this big increase in net migration, and also that we’ve got to have the support for integration, support for English language speaking, a lot of the measures that are set out as part of that white paper”.
Asked if Starmer or his speech writers knew that the “island of strangers” phrase echoed Powell, Cooper said she did not know.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am:Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
10am:Thames Water bosses give evidence to the Commons environment committee about reforming the water sector.
11.30am:David Lammy, the foreign secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Noon:Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: MPs begin a debate on an assisted dying bill.
3.15pm: Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, gives evidence to the Commons business committee about industrial strategy.
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