RAMPANT immigration risks Britain becoming “an island of strangers”, Sir Keir Starmer warned yesterday as he unveiled curbs to cut annual arrivals by 100,000.
Tearing up a decades-long Establishment orthodoxy that population growth was an indisputable economic benefit, the PM said the influx in recent years had done incalculable damage to the UK.
And in a surprising shift from previously labelling immigration laws as “racist”, the Labour leader said what he called “the open borders experiment” had marked a “squalid chapter” for the country.
But despite the tough talk, his package was panned as “barely scratching the surface” of the problem.
His measures could still see a city the size of Wolverhampton added to the population each year at the end of the decade.
Reform’s Nigel Farage raged: “With him at the helm, who has campaigned for free movement for his entire political career, I don’t believe he’ll enforce any of it.”
The crackdown includes a ban on foreign care workers, raising the immigration surcharge on bosses by 30 per cent, imposing a six per cent levy on international students and shortening the period students can stay after graduating from two years to 18 months.
Migrants will also face tougher English language tests, a ten-year wait until they can earn settlement status and a tightening of both low and high-skilled visa routes.
Only so-called high-contributing migrants, such as doctors and nurses, will be eligible for fast-tracked settlement.
Judges will also be ordered to throw out bogus human rights claims lodged by foreign offenders to evade deportation.
As previously revealed by The Sun, Parliament will pass laws telling courts to ignore absurd appeals about rights to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
And low-level international criminals, such as shoplifters, will also face removal even if they have not been sent to prison.
In an early-morning Downing Street press conference, Sir Keir railed against the long-standing Treasury thinking that unfettered immigration was totally positive.
He said the quadrupling of net migration under the Tories — peaking at a record 906,000 in 2023 — was a betrayal of the “take back control” message to voters in the Brexit referendum.
The PM said: “Nations depend on rules — fair rules. Sometimes they’re written down, often they’re not, but either way, they give shape to our values. They guide us towards our rights, of course, but also our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to one another.
“Now, in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more important.
“Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.”
He said his Immigration White Paper would “distinguish between those that do and those that don’t” and force migrants to integrate and learn the language.
Sir Keir added: “The pure theory that simply higher migration numbers necessarily leads to higher growth I think has been tested in the last four years.
“We quadrupled net migration in actually a very short period of time and I think whatever political persuasion you are it is quite extraordinary that net migration quadrupled in four years.
“We have never seen that before in this country but growth didn’t shift, it stayed stagnant.”
His hardline rhetoric sparked a howl of rage from left-wing Labour MPs who publicly attacked their leader.
Backbencher Nadia Whittome accused him of “mimicking the scaremongering of the far-right”.
But both Reform and the Tories said the cuts in numbers were nowhere near radical enough.
The Home Office said, when implemented, the package would cut annual net migration by 100,000.
The figure is already projected to drop to 340,000 in 2028, meaning the new curbs could shave that to about 240,000, although it depends on how many Britons leave the country.
Sir Keir has refused to set an arbitrary target, claiming the Conservatives repeatedly failed to meet their promises.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “This plan barely scratches the surface and is a weak plan from a weak Prime Minister.”
He called for an annual legally-binding cap on numbers.
Mr Farage claimed the PM was acting now only after Reform hammered Labour in the local elections and opened a ten-point gap in the opinion polls.
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