Starmer Risks a Migration Backlash, This Time From the Left

Keir Starmer said he wants to take the battle to Nigel Farage, rather than feuding with his own Labour Party. Instead the prime minister looks set to be tested by a brewing rebellion over his efforts to counter Farage’s Reform UK on immigration.

Starmer installed Shabana Mahmood as home secretary in September with a mandate to get tough on immigration, a leading concern of the British public since net inflows came close to a million people a year in the aftermath of the pandemic. Mahmood’s flagship policy has been to double to 10 years the time legal migrants must be in the country before they can claim permanent residency, as well as introducing a swathe of other restrictions on asylum-seekers.