Keir Starmer Is Right to Call Out Reform’s Racism
Keir Starmer rightly argued that the subject of limiting immigration cannot be taboo for Labour.
Photographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Is it fair to describe people who are concerned about immigration racist? How about those who march against asylum seekers? Or support the mass deportation of foreign nationals? Or who are hostile to fellow citizens raised in cultures different to their own? These questions are at the heart of UK debate right now; where voters stand on that sliding scale of toleration for mass immigration may determine the shape of the nation’s politics for years to come.
At this week’s Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Prime Minister Keir Starmer took a stand. Aiming his fire at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the populist party that’s surged ahead in the opinion polls largely by exploiting concerns about unchecked migration, Starmer declared its intention of canceling settled status for legal migrants to be racist.