It was a foul race to the bottom at PMQs. Keir Starmer played right into Farage’s hands.

Given a recent poll had Nigel Farage’s Reform party ahead of Labour, it may not be wise for Keir Starmer to fuel the sentiment that Farage thrives off. But at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Starmer stoked the issue of immigration in response to questioning from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

Race to the bottom at this week’s PMQs

Badenoch said:

Why [is] cutting immigration not a priority?

Starmer replied:

The previous government presided over record high levels of immigration. The figures just a few weeks ago. Nearly a million on net migration. That is unprecedented. A one nation experiment in open borders under the last government.

Net immigration for the year ending in June 2024 was 728,000. That’s 1.2m offset by 479,000 people emigrating. The 1.2m is mainly made up of people from outside the EU+ on study or work visas, particularly for health and social care. The statistics are defined by people coming to the UK for more than a year.

For students below degree level, people can stay for a maximum of two years and for degree level they can stay for up to five years. A university graduate visa is also available, which means they can remain for an additional two years (or three for PhD students).

To emigrate to the UK, one needs either a job offer, significant capital, education prospects, UK ancestry, family or humanitarian reasons. Additionally, UK employers usually must pay an ‘immigration skills charge’ for hiring abroad.

Research from Oxford University suggests that the idea that immigrant workers are undercutting jobs for those born in the UK is largely unfounded. That’s partly because every immigrant person that comes here creates additional demand for goods and services. So immigration also creates jobs. Although, one study has found that immigration can have a small impact on the wages of low skilled service workers.

But the way to address this is surely to enforce a rule whereby profits of large service chains must be reflected in the wages of workers, rather than scapegoating foreign-born people.

Setting the stage for Farage

The idea the UK is ‘full’ is also misguided. Only 5% of land is used for homes and gardens. That means all 67m of us live in a country where  95% of the land is used for other things. To be sure, 71% of UK land is used for agriculture. And no one’s saying we should develop all of it. But it’s not ‘full’.

The fact is that 64% of the UK believe immigration has had a positive or neutral impact on the country.

So, Starmer should not be using PMQs to lament it from a wholly negative perspective. That only hands power to Farage.

But then again, during the election the Labour Party leader pretty much gifted the Reform MP his seat. He pulled the campaign of the Labour candidate in Farage’s constituency: Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, a 27 year old Black man. This can only be explained through Starmer actually wanting to boost Farage in order to keep UK political discourse right-wing.

Starmer setting the stage for Farage, both in the election and at PMQs, is certainly concerning.

Featured image via Guardian News – YouTube