The desire to reduce mass migration is so undeniably popular in the United Kingdom, and such a threat to politicians who oppose it, that the left-wing government in power is flipping on the issue. Early this week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer publicly admitted that unrestrained mass migration hasn’t benefited the people of the U.K., despite claims to the contrary by elites, including himself.
Starmer’s conversion comes less than two weeks after Reform UK, which opposes mass migration, easily won a round of local elections.
“The experiment is over,” the prime minister declared Monday. “We will deliver what you have asked for — time and again — and we will take back control of our borders. I believe we need to reduce immigration significantly.” The point, he added, is to have an immigration system that “works for our national interest.”
In his speech, Starmer said the U.K. risks becoming an “island of strangers” and admitted the country’s suicidal immigration system “seems almost designed to permit abuse.”
Starmer’s “island of strangers” statement triggered screeches of “far-right rhetoric” and comparisons to conservative parliament member Enoch Powell’s 1968 “rivers of blood” speech. In that address, Powell compared the deluge of migrants the island was experiencing back then to “a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.” Powell described why mass migration was great for the migrant but rendered natives “strangers in their own country”:
They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighborhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated.
Powell was ousted from his party’s frontbench for that speech.
Labour’s Immigration Plan
Starmer vowed to implement reforms that “will create a migration system that is controlled, selective, and fair.”
The measures, outlined in a government White Paper published on Monday, will purportedly lead to a “substantial” reduction in net migration by the end of this parliament, Starmer said. He has pledged to cut net migration by about 100,000 a year by 2029.
Reforms will demand that migrants master a higher level of English. “When people come to our country, they should also commit to integration, to learning our language, and our system should actively distinguish between those that do and those that don’t,” Starmer said.
Moreover:
Every area of the immigration system — work, family, and study — will be tightened up so we have more control. Skill requirements raised to degree level. English language requirements across all routes — including for dependents. The time it takes to acquire settled status extended from five years to ten. And enforcement tougher than ever because fair rules must be followed.
There will also be some slight changes in visa permits. This includes eliminating the social care visa, but also the addition of a new visa for bereaved parents. Sky News described it this way: “those in the UK who have a British or settled child that dies can get settled status immediately.”
And those seeking to come to the U.K. on a worker visa will need to have, at a minimum, an undergraduate degree. Also, people in the U.K. on graduate visas will be allowed six fewer months to stay than the current 24 months. As for those who are in the U.K. on short-term visas and commit a crime, they will be deported. And people who sponsor migrant workers or students in a fraudulent manner will face penalties.
Also, the new plan extends from five years to 10 the amount of time migrants have to live in the U.K. before achieving settled status, unless they’re “high-contributing” people such as doctors and nurses. They can still apply in five years.
Reform UK Not Convinced
While this is welcome news for a majority of U.K. citizens, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage isn’t buying it. He is not convinced that Starmer’s transformation is genuine. Farage tweeted the day of the announcement, “Starmer is a hypocrite who believes in open borders. Here he is making the case for freedom of movement just a few years ago. Nobody believes a word he says.” In his tweet, he included a video from a few years ago in which the prime minister insists that on a “strong case for freedom of movement.”
Farage explained why he doesn’t believe the Labour Party’s new position. According to Breitbart:
For all the big talk, the government still won’t consider leaving the European Court of Human Rights, a European institution that has been a major stumbling block to repeated attempts to deport unwanted migrants. Farage and allies have said withdrawing from the court is a major step to the government getting the flexibility to side-step endless lawfare to keep migrants in Britain. … Also missing was any sort of migrant arrival cap, only a promise to reduce overall numbers.
Starmer’s speech, Breitbart further noted, was served in an atmosphere of irony. “Even as he spoke from Westminster on Monday morning,” hundreds of migrants were landing on England’s southern shore, the outlet pointed out.
U.K. Hit Hardest by Mass Migration
Just as is the case in the United States, there is no reliable way to know how many illegals there are in the U.K. But some reports say there are more in the U.K. than in any other European nation. This is not to be confused with the European Union member nation that has the most the most overall migrants, which most reports say is Germany.
Many U.K. residents blame the rise in crime on foreign nationals. According to the U.K. government, headline crime — this includes theft, robbery, criminal damage, fraud, computer misuse, and violence with or without injury — rose 12 percent from 2023 to 2024.
There has also been a rise in sexual assault over the last decade, of which foreign nationals commit a disproportionate number. “Foreigners are convicted of up to a quarter of sex crimes,” The Telegraph reported back in March, adding, “this is despite census data showing foreign nationals make up just 9.3 per cent of the population.” More from The Telegraph:
Two nationalities — Afghans and Eritreans — were more than 20 times more likely to account for sexual offence convictions than British citizens, according to the data. Overall, foreign nationals were 71 per cent more likely than Britons to be responsible for sex crime convictions.
Europe Has Had Enough
When U.K. voters approved the referendum to leave the European Union in 2016, known as Brexit, immigration reform was the deciding issue. Citizens wanted border restrictions the globalists at the EU oppose. And this sentiment is widespread.
In France, former presidential front-runner Marine LaPen’s nationalism was such a threat that they took her out of the running with blatant lawfare. On March 31, a French court convicted the National Rally leader of misusing European Union funds, which bars her from seeking public office for the next five years. LaPen is a big supporter of common-sense immigration policies that would preserve French culture.
In Germany, the domestic spy agency is working overtime to ban the most popular nationalist party, Alternative for Germany, or AfD. Early in May, the agency designated AfD an extremist organization, essentially opening it up to unlimited surveillance and paving the way to an outright ban. But days later, it retracted the move without explanation. What happens to the AfD will depend on the court’s decision, which is little consolation to AfD supporters.
Open borders is a major goal of those seeking to install a global government. The United Nations and the European Union are advocates of a borderless Europe. The United Nations also supported the migrant invasion that persisted in the United States under the Biden administration. This magazine has for decades warned the purpose of the international agreements and entities was to usurp national sovereignty and destroy nation states. And it appears the world is finally waking up.
