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.

How have you gone from naming the policy as immoral and racist to calling all people who support reform immoral and racist? Jesus Christ

He's not wrong is he? They are racist, plain and simple.

I think it’s quite important that Starmer does point out the obvious flaws in reform.

If all he does is appease racists he will lose votes from the educated left and frankly he needs them.

if he’s going down (and actually I hope he isn’t, he’s still the least worst option by a really long way), I want him going down swinging not shrinking.

Just to do some verbal maths can you answer the following?

1. Is being concerned about your population increasing by nearly a million people a year due to immigration ‘racist’?
2. If the two mainstream parties have been voted in time and time again and cannot or will not rectify the above, who should you vote for then that isn’t racist in your view?

He’s not helping himself, but I guess he’ll find out at voting time.

Of course he's going to offend those who start a racist statement with 'Now you know me, I'm not being racialist, but...'.

Because they're racists, plain and simple.

Every party has been drowning in scandals because the eyes are on them. Have we all forgotten party gate? Dominic cumming? All the budget stuff?

I would absolutely not be surprised if Reform did get elected if all these ‘scandals’ started popping up. Right now, they’re not major enough for anyone to go snooping.

If they think they're being called immoral racists, it's probably because they are. And they wouldn't vote Starmer anyway so it's about time he stopped chasing their vote. They're voting for the cunty old grifter irregardless

Reform is clearly likely to attract racists, but I can't see what is inherently racist in their policies. Being anti-immigration is not inherently racist. What specifically does Keir Starmer think is racist?

Here's what was actually said. NB this was specifically about the Reform policy of scrapping indefinite leave to remain. Not about other immigration policies.

Keir Starmer calls Reform migrant policy 'racist' and 'immoral'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj6xdw1dg4zo

Kuenssberg: Do you think it's a racist policy?

Starmer: I do think it's a racist policy, I do think it's immoral, it needs to be called out for what it is.

Kuenssberg: And do you think that Reform UK is trying to appeal to racists?

Starmer: No. I think there are plenty of people who either vote Reform or are thinking of voting Reform who are frustrated. They had 14 years of failure under the Conservatives. They want us to change things – they may have voted Labour a year ago – and they want the change to come more quickly.

1. Farage and the rest of the party haven’t given any clear policies that outline HOW they’d reduce migration. The majority of migrants are in the country legally but most people who get upset about the numbers are upset about asylum seekers coming here in small boats. Reform knows there’s no real way to stop them coming over and once they’re here, they cost money to deal with even if they’re just being returned to France. So, instead, they’ve decided to go for the low hanging fruit by claiming they’ll kick out the people who are here completely legally. Which will be IMMEDIATELY challenged in court and will end up being a) expensive and b) pointless, because no judge will agree it’s reasonable.
2. If you vote based on immigration and immigration alone you are — quite frankly — deeply stupid. There are so many issues facing the country but immigration grabs headlines. I’m unlucky enough to live in an area with a Reform-run local authority. They’ve been in charge for less than 5 months and already they’re proving they couldn’t be trusted to run a bath.

It reminds me of Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment. It may or may not be correct, but it lost her the presidency. So too, perhaps, it may lose Starmer the next election.

It’s the truth.

Id hope the truth isn’t political suicide or we are in bigger trouble than I thought!

Well you may be concerned about increasing population through immigration but fail to address the questions of how would we fill all the job vacancies without them? Out hotel trade is suffering from too many vacancies , our care industry relies on inmagrants …

if the mainstream parties all think that the country would be in a much worse situation if there was less/no immigration why do you think it’s so easy to get people to accept that immagration is a problem ?

No no no that's what the racists want you to think. There's now enough of them being openly racist to not bothered about being called racist though you are right, mainly thanks to social media.

They do seem to get very techy when they are called it though.

So:

1. It isn’t manifesto time; so I’m not surprised we don’t know the ins and outs?
2. you don’t know? You think it should just go unsolved until the population reaches what; 100 million? 200 million? Can you say?

Also, as Reform are on track to win the next GE, by logical extension that must mean we have an enormous number of racists in this country. Would you encourage immigration to a country that is inherently racist, or is it better for immigrants not to come to a country that is inherently racist?

I think he needed to do it ages ago tbh.

He needs to fight fire with fire and be very direct.

Had enough of ..?

It’s political suicide I agree. They don’t learn. Gordon Brown dismissively waved away and labelled a perfectly ordinary woman as a bigot and yet here people are, years later, still asking the same questions. Still being told to stfu and suck it up.

Ordinary people, who don’t necessarily understand the inner machinations of politics and immigration law, still wondering why hundreds of undocumented people can just rock up on a British shore every day and just be allowed in and accommodated. Nobody explains or seems to be empathetic to people’s incredulity.

Irrespective of whether people are bigots, racists, xenophobes, the minute their elected politicians speak the language of privilege, and dismiss concerns as mere trifles, then the flags, the rallies and the ballot box will be the only power the bigots can exert.

I mean, I do think Reform is racist.

But you are taking KS’s words deliberately out of context. He said one of Reform’s policies is racist. That’s a world away from saying its voters are.

I’d rather ship out the racists, if I’m being totally honest.

Reform on track to win the next election 😂😂😂

The cunty old grifter's arse would fall out if he got anywhere near real power he's not interested in running the country whatsoever

I think that worrying about migration is not particularly racist and tbh people are increasingly not bothered about being called racist. These interventions make everything worse imo. He would have been better off saying why he didn’t agree with the policies and what the flaws are. I don’t think yelling “racist” at anyone really works anymore. It smells like he’s trying to avoid engaging with the substance to take some moral high ground instead. He needs to explain why LTR’s shouldn’t be assessed according to net contribution to the

Theres a reasonable case to be made where people who work full time doing jobs we consider to be socially useful but require top ups are in fact making a positive contribution to the UK. He needs to make that case instead of this fallback to “oh they are terrible people”. I think we’ve reached a turning point where that just doesn’t work anymore and people just start ignoring you with an eye roll.

It’s also not unusual to have conditions attached to your visa if you are resident but not a citizen of a country, if you fail to meet those conditions then yes you are often asked to leave and have your visa withdrawn.

His attitude and attitudes like lots of the posters on here are the reason why Labour will get absolutely slaughtered in the next GE! I think the next trouncing they are going to get will make the one that Jeremy corbyn got look positively minor! STOP branding worried people as racists and start listening to their concerns!

It's the truth. I agree with him on this.

Reform are a party of racist twats. Those who vote for them are racist even though many will try to hotly deny it.