Starmer Must Go

[BisiBodi]

I made a lengthy post yesterday (on this thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/politics/5333405-changes-to-immigration-rules-announced-by-starmer?page=2 @ 17:43 if you want to read it) regarding the horrendous "island of strangers" speech by Starmer
Today, Kier Starmer has decided to say that immigration has done "incalculable damage" to the country. My despair and fury over this, and the general direction of labour, warrants its own thread.

Starmer claimed in writing that immigrants have put too much pressure on housing and public services (they don't, and he previously said they don't). He added that the immigration system is “almost designed to permit abuse” and that it risks “pulling the country apart”. He said that he wanted to close a “squalid chapter” in our country’s history (of too much immigration in the last few years), and then he seemed to quote the Rivers of Blood speech and said that without significantly reducing immigration the UK risks becoming “an island of strangers".

He's doing this because he's proposing new laws to make immigration harder and bring net migration down (except they definitely won't). Stuff like increasing it to 10 years before you can apply for indefinite leave to remain (10 years!!), introducing English language tests (in a post that suggests Welsh doesn't exist), reducing social care visas (the system would collapse in a day), being tougher on overseas students and reducing the time they can stay after graduation (if you reduce their numbers at all then Universities will be bankrupt immediately), new ID cards, reduce (oh sorry, "clarify") the amount ECHR article 8 can be used to justify people staying on human rights grounds, etc.

When someone pointed out that high migration helps economies and low hurts them, and that this is true in the EU right now and all over the world, Starmer didn't think so. He said that immigration has been high in the UK but the economy has been stagnant, so there can't be any link. Yes Keir, but the economy was stagnant during A PANDEMIC AND ENERGY CRISIS AND COST OF LIVING CRISIS AND EXPENSIVE NEW WARS AND GLOBAL MARKET TRUMP TURMOIL. If the immigrants hadn't kept us level, your "stagnant" economy would have plummeted like a rock. You cannot possibly be presenting that as X=Y in a total vacuum.

This kind of xenophobia doesn't need explaining, but it's worth saying why it won't work and will lose Labour a lot of votes:

• Conservative and Reform voters do NOT change their vote to Labour ever, so this pandering is worthless. But Labour can lose votes to the Greens and LDs at a high rate. Nearly ALL the Reform votes come from former Conservatives.
• Public concern about immigration is low and goes up and down exactly with how much the press is currently going on about it (see the graph) so is not worth alienating your voter base about
• And it is alienating voters, because you've heard this kind of rhetoric before but it was from the actual NF and BNP
• The Mail's headline today was still attacking Labour because it is impossible to ever go far enough for them, or for Reform voters. Nothing is ever enough.

So, Labour saying "Reform are right actually" won't bring a single voter over to Labour, but it sure will lose you a few. Or, er, a lot. People are resigning their Labour membership and sounding furious. I haven't seen a single event trigger this much outrage from the public (and Labour MPs) in quite a while. Starmer has hugely damaged himself. Germany's far-right AfD are praising him, that's the level it's at.

I already left for the Greens, but today has me going even further. I think it's now worth the potential chaos to get rid of Starmer's version of Labour. In a timely article today, Nesrine Malik called our current elections "hostage politics". You MUST vote Labour or the Tories will get in. Now you MUST vote Labour or Reform will get in.

I don't respond well to threats. Never have. I tend to escalate. And I'm bored of their crap: more cuts, keeping first-past-the-post even though Labour members want PR, refusing to talk about rejoining the EU even though Labour members (and the majority of the country) want full rejoin, this xenophobic shit which goes against everything Starmer said about immigration when he was running for leader (but then he's broken every pledge from that time), the anti-trans bollocks, coming for the disabled PIP and saying all benefits are too high and that people are taking advantage of handouts and all the rest.

Fuck these guys. There's pragmatic politics where you compromise, and then there's this literal far-right shit that means you personally HAVE to be comfortable with saying it in public. It's about the soul of the PM and the party. Today is way over the line of sensible cross-party anything.

And I'm done with hostage politics. What, so we keep Labour in for 8 more years of... this? Of the same or more cuts? I'm rapidly approaching the point where smashing this Labour party so that they never try to be centre- / far-right again would do more good than the short-term harm.

Voters didn't show unwavering support for Labour at the last election, they showed that they will be extremely flexible and vote for whoever can win in their area. If Labour become unpopular in the polls, that will be someone else and not them. Labour's lead is incredibly fragile and changeable and today's performance is EXACTLY how they lose it and deserve to lose it. Yes, some young men went to Reform before the election... and twice as many young women went to the Greens. Labour's share fell 21% in 18-24 year olds. You cannot gain a single Reform vote by going right. It will never be far-right enough.
Saying that Reform are correct and using their rhetoric in speeches and changing your policies to theirs is NOT how you defeat them, or run a country.

Replace Starmer, quickly. At the very least.

And so what is the purpose of this thread, other than to vent into an online echo-chamber? I think it's a request to a call to action. It's a call out to everyone who currently resides - whether you like it or not - in a Labour controlled constituency and has a labour MP.

You can easily find out the details, together with links to their speeches and/or voting records, from service such as They Work For You.
Check the details of your MP, and especially their stance on immigration and other matters important to you, then email them.

Yes what a good post. We as a nation prefer to let people linger in absolute misery.

@BisiBodi Public concern about immigration is low and goes up and down exactly with how much the press is currently going on about it (see the graph) so is not worth alienating your voter base about

Public concern about immigration began after the A8 countries in the EU gained FOM and Britain didn't use the 7 year brake that other comparable economies like France and Germany did. There was a very good documentary recently on BBC2, still on iPlayer, which lays out how our concerns have risen, and risen, and risen. Immigration has been spectacularly mismanaged because Britain is an administrative shit show, we don't regulate and keep tabs properly.

We have no idea how many people are living in this country. No idea at all.

Starmer is trying to stop Reform winning the next general election by a landslide. He may not succeed. It may be too late already. But that’s what he is trying to do, and I for one hope he succeeds.

If you don’t agree with him, fine. Don’t vote Labour. Vote Lib Dem or Green instead, or abstain. But be in no doubt that if you live in a Labour-held constituency in which Reform finished second at the last election, that would effectively be a vote for Farage to become PM.

I think he might help Reform. Well more than he has in the first ten months.

I agree, it was obvious that he wasn't saying all immigrants are strangers but that our current dysfunctional immigration system is encouraging segregation instead of integration.

Yes I think he was saying that but I’m not sure what he can do about it. It’s human nature to want to spend time with people from a similar culture, customs and language and when there are sufficient numbers communities will form which become self-sufficient.
I don’t see how politicians can force people to integrate.

This was a good programme and covered Labour and Tory PMs. I recommend it as it explains the role of the Treasury and the growth agenda for the economy based on external migration not internal investment (which was abruptly dumped yesterday).

Immigration is a massive issue and there is no brushing it under the carpet and shushing people and using the bigot card anymore.

People voted to leave the EU because of mass unskilled immigration, that’s was a shambles trying to implement. Fast forward a few years and instead of having less immigration, here we are with more.

The panic is setting in now because of the local elections and the rise of Reform but it shouldn’t have come to that, they should have wanted to tackle it from the get go, not just because their hands are now being forced.

@purrrge Up to 2020 it absolutely was not fine. We were still getting net migration upwards of 250k a year. That wasn't sustainable either.

Hear, hear.

He didn't say immigration had done incalcuable damage.

He said open-border immigration had done incalcuable damage.

Nope I’m a centre left voter and agree with him with the proviso that this is ‘in recent years’ - blame Johnson and co , post Brexit they simply had open sesame from the 3rd world plus their families to try and hide the fact the country lost a great many tax paying and working EU nationals in many industry’s including essential services. I probably wouldn’t have phrased it as starmer did , but I agree with the sentiment . However one big problem is the fact we have a lot of people who simply don’t want to work at lower paid levels , even if capable of doing so . I’m not talking about anyone out of work at the moment who usually does work, I am talking about those who are happy to get by on benefits and know every trick in the book and every nuance of the system to do as few hours as they can get away with . You don’t have to be right wing to know that plenty are very aware of how to maximise the system to their advantage - ironically plenty of them are the type to support Farage too . Starmer really can’t win as it stands - and unfortunately I think the Tory’s and Farage gamed it that way - too far to the left ( there isn’t the cash to make massive changes despite those who seem to think money grows on trees) and too far to the right , you simply end up looking not dissimilar to the Tory’s - especially if keeping up the ludicrous Brexit pretence.

It’s interesting that Labour supporters on here are promoting Starmer which is about here in numbers without seeing that many will think why not go lower eg Reform level.

Now Labour have apparently 180d from dog whistle to immigration is bad rhetoric.

Well, as a recent immigrant, I think even if Starmer goes, it will make no difference. The public doesn't want immigration, so every party will cut it.

@MrsSkylerWhite @hattie43 @TorroFerney @Ceramiq

Whilst I think few people want to end up dribbling in a nursing home for years, you must appreciate that practically deciding when to not give people medical treatment is basically impossible? How would you imagine that would work? Think about the marginal cases where the Dr's are withdrawing treatment but the family (or maybe the person themselves) still believes they have a quality of life?

Also what if someone is not actually being 'kept alive' yet they are basically incapable of looking after themselves? I appreciate this is less common but I know someone who lived to 97 years old in a nursing home. Nothing wrong with her, no medication, pretty immobile and early stages of dementia but still knew who family members were etc. What do you do in this case?

Nothing wrong with her, no medication, pretty immobile and early stages of dementia but still knew who family members were etc. What do you do in this case?

That's up to her and her family but if it was me I’d want to be on my way to the Next World sharpish.
I dread ending up in a nursing home and i also want to be able to leave my children something rather than it all being swallowed in care home fees.

For a start we could make general care work a better paid, career option with professional training that would attract school leavers.

Imo that us a much better option than importing people to do the work.

It could also serve to provide decent jobs for UK citizens as well as a feeling of pride/responsibility for the job you do.

Couldn’t agree more. That is years in the making though. Arguably a generation. In the meantime we still need skilled workers to pick up the slack

I am an immigrant on a skilled worker visa. I expect turmoil and even high taxes in the next few years as the UK tries to upskill and get more people into work. I am considering less expensive pastures, as is most of my team.

His first name is ”Keir” so if you cannot even spell that, do not expect anyone to take your post seriously.

For many people, the fact Sir Keir Starmer is alienating some of the loonie left in his party is seen as a good thing.

I'll feel better about foreign workers being brought in to pick up the slack if such a training were in place, but there isn't even a hint of it !!!

Well @TheHouseofGirth - that happens if you have no loyalty to your country. We have to pay for Covid somehow.

What happens? Don't understand you.
If native Brits like Jo Malone have no loyalty, why do you expect it from net contributing immigrants who have been told to demonstrate their contributions?

@Araminta1003I agree with many of your posts on other topics. I’m surprised you like him!

I mean that in a nice way.

ETA unless there’s someone with a similar name on school threads

It is not that I “like” him @EasternStandard - I just think the man has a tough job and he is making the right decisions for the country and is pretty brave to do so. And I think the alternative options are far worse! I also like Teresa May and thought she was given the worst deal. Sunak was OK-ish.
I am not particularly party political though.

@TheHouseofGirth - whilst taxation is high here, professional jobs do pay very well. And if you live somewhere like London, there are great cultural opportunities. Of course there are always less interesting places to live with lower taxes so if you need to save money, go there.
However, we do all need to pay for Covid here. It was like a war and we are in the rebuild period.
Brexit was an act of self harm that double-whammied the Covid effect for us as a country.