To think Starmer calling Refom and its supporters ‘racist’ is politically suicidal?

[SpottyAardvark]

Starmer has called Reform’s policy of ending indefinite right to remain for non-EU immigrants ‘immoral’ & ‘racist’. Reform supporters, and people who are considering voting for Reform because of their concerns about immigration, will inevitably think the Prime Minister is calling them immoral racists, too. And that will infuriate millions of voters.

I understand that it’s Labour’s conference this week and because he is under a lot of political pressure from his own side, Starmer believes he has to throw some red meat to his party. That’s politics. But Starmer has obviously forgotten what happened to Hillary Clinton when she described Trump voters as ‘deplorable’. That didn’t work out well for her, did it?

YABU = Starmer is right. Reform and its supporters are racists and he should call it out.

YANBU = Starmer has just committed political suicide by falling into Farage’s trap and he has alienated working class voters.

Nobody cares about being called racist now. It's an overused and meaningless word.

Funny. You can see in this very thread accusations of racism. In other threads. All over the internet. On the news. Left wing people being biliously self righteous. You don’t need to try and sort out Starmer’s shit comms. It’s everywhere for all to see. It’s a lost cause I’m afraid - unless something seriously different comes from the Labour Party.

So no attempt to stand up your comment of "instead of trying to understand people’s concerns", then? Mm-hm.

Exactly

There's a common but weird behaviour – one which is long past its sell-by-date – where posters are vociferous that "I won't vote for X because of Y"... and then add "but I wouldn't vote for X anyway."

Um, OK.

😆 seriously. Thank you for helping to prove the point I was making.

@Uggbootsforever stop being so sensationalist. The UK absolutely does not have an overcrowding issue. The issue is that people are concentrated is small spaces because the UK economy has been too focused on London and priced people out. Resources are struggling because they have not been funded properly and lots of public services have been privitised through the back door causing huge pressure on local government. No one actually wants to pay any tax but all think that public services should be better and the young are funding an increasingly elderly population and it is not sustainable. The asylum seekers we take in (a tiny amount in comparison to many countries) really do not make a dent. And if we actually allowed them to work (many doctors, scientists and professionals) as they want to, then things would be much better for everyone. But if you would rather believe they are living the high life in 5* hotels (they are not- the hotels they are hurded in are hell and they are treated as animals by agency security staff which may explain some of the issues) then keep fooling yourself. The reason we have a huge backlog of asylum seekers stuck in hotels is due to under under investment from the last Government creating a huge delay. As an example, they stopped specialist court hearings taking place at centres to 'save money'. This used to happen very quickly. As a result, people are now stuck for months/years rather than weeks.

See also, "Party X shouldn't have Y as their leader... but I'd never vote for X whoever they had."

Righto. Thanks for sharing.

Starmer isn't responsible for every single person on the internet you deem to be left wing though.
I think it would be equally unreasonable to damn Farage by every single thing said by any vaguely right wing person on the interwebs. I'm happy to judge him by his own words/actions and the friends he keeps.

But when Perking posted the actual transcript of what Starmer said (including his statement that he didn't think all reform voters were racist) your response was well people on the internet are calling others racist so there.

If I said the Loch Ness monster is still alive that's not the same as Keir Starmer saying the Loch Ness Monster is still alive. Yes?

And aso, sometimes people are racist and it is right to point that out.

Wasn’t it the case that members of the last Labour government were recorded as wanting to encourage immigration so as to “rub the right’s nose in diversity” in the hope that would end racism once and for all?

Let me offer this perspective.

I wouldn’t Vote Reform for various reasons but I am also mixed race and recognise that uncontrolled immigration puts pressure on housing and resources for people (including immigrants) who are already here.

I have seen banners from those on the left calling for open borders and no more immigration controls.

The question is, who is going to pay for it all?

To dismiss people’s concerns about immigration as racist ignores the issue that many who are concerned are not racist but simply concerned about the economics and the resources.

I couldn’t care less whether or not the population of the UK ends up being majority brown in the next few decades.

I do care about whether there is enough housing, jobs and education to go round the population, and that people who come here from deeply misogynistic and traditional societies aren’t given a free reign to practice that culture here.

To be fair, any non-Reform Tories are in a bind.

They've spent the last decade-plus cooking up this mess in all sorts of ways, and thinking they were clever to constantly dodge responsibility and act like Labour should carry the can for Tory actions (on top of all the double standards and outright smearing).

Despite all evidence to the contrary, they somehow believed they were in a two-party system and Labour losing meant Tories winning. <facepalm>

Now they're whining that Labour aren't doing enough to keep Reform out.

Reform have been rubbing their hands with glee at the Tories having no policy but to trash Labour. Two birds one stone.

Oh right. So let’s not shout it out loud? Not quite sure what’s you’re saying

Yep, they think abusing and demonising people will terrify them into silence, after all it worked for a few years. It's not working any more. The majority of the Uk has massive concerns with undocumented immigrants, overstaying immigrants and criminal immigrants and the numbers of immigrants - the concerns are real, documented and fair.

The slur and abuse technique being applied to those with majority, uncontroversial opinions is not even working on mumsnet anymore where it did, for years.

I didnt see it but if he has alienated working class voters.Its a big problem in society.

Absolutely to be expected from starmer - after realising his , " island of strangers " rhetoric wasn't enough to recapture the old red wall, he's changed focus and is now appealing to the liberal Islington elite by joining in with slamming the working class communities; shame there isn't enough of them left to get him re elected as half have defected to the greens. Also a pity that he hasn't passed on the memo to his new home Secretary who, as we speak, is broadcasting her new forthcoming crackdown on ilr which suspiciously mirrors reforms. What an absolute mess. A pm who flip flops like a dying fish and hasn't a clue what or who the party stands for. Can't stand the Tories either but they weren't this bad. Voted Labour all my life but they've lost me for good. I'll join the queue with all the other politically homeless.

It wont make him re-electable though which is the whole point. He has to be a PM for the whole country and not just Labour voters.

You don't get people to vote for you by telling them how awful and wrong they are.

Could it rebound on him in the same way "Deplorables" did on Hilary Clinton?

Yeah, it could.

In a way it is surprising that he isn't more aware that internal party stuff like this, meant for people on your own side, can and will go out into the general population and may go over very differently there.

Not surprising though in that he never has shown any particular political nous.

Looking at how the polling is now, Labour will not have to win over voters who might be thinking about voting Tory, he will need to win over the ones who are thinking they might as well give Reform a kick at the can.

It should be pretty well established by now, I'd have thought, that the tactic of calling people racists is not only become ineffective, it probably loses votes in a lot of cases.

Lots of places, that are good places to live and which people do not call racist, don't give indefinite right to remain. He should be arguing the policy will be ineffective, or is stupid and unworkable, or something else that is a rational policy argument, if he wants to make people think twice.

Oh so you are saying that all undocumented immigrants are non-white?

The issue with Starmer is that he lies to suit whatever narrative he thinks will work. It was only the other day he was calling those who attended the London protests ‘far right’ and ‘racist’. It wasn’t so long back he told the whole nation we are an “Island of strangers”. If anyone now believes he has suddenly gone from calling London protesters far right and racist (I assume many of whom will be reform voters) to now saying they are not racist and it’s just reform’s policy that is racist then I can assure you he’s just pulling a fast one in the hope people will agree with him. As pp’s are saying, he’s just flip flopping depending on which way he thinks the wind will blow and trying out new tactics to see which one works. He’s just spewing whatever words he thinks will win the electorate over. However, he’s proven himself as a complete liar on many other occasions over the last 14 months.
So if you believe he’s now all of a sudden changed his mind about reform voters not being ‘racist’ then more fool you.
The man contradicts himself so much that he’s starting to make himself look rather stupid now.
He is just saying what he thinks people are wanting to hear. I for one don’t believe his manipulation tactics.

He called them racist not long back when they protested in London so he has called them racist and far right before. As I have just said in another post, he’s trying different tactics to see which one works. He was calling us an ‘Island of strangers’ not long back. He needs to make his mind up because he’s just making himself look silly at the moment.

I agree in parts, but I also think it would be unfair to say that someone who has had fully approved settled status should be vulnerable to that being taken away. I don’t think citizenship is the right way to categorise those people. Perhaps longer eligibility for settled status (such as 10 years if you arrive in adulthood). The policy in question would reverse someone’s status which in effect is making the law work backwards.

Not all, but most (non-EU as this is what this policy is about) will be in fact, non white.

Having a policy that revokes peoples right to live here is racist.

Starmer was very clear that this is what he was talking about.

Yet that is exactly what reform are doing.

It's just they're doing it to people that racists think shouldn't live here.