Immigration crackdown targets Farage on the Reform leader’s turf

An overhaul of the UK’s immigration rules was always in the diary.

But the fact that Keir Starmer has embarked on one quite this tough, two weeks after losing a local election to Nigel Farage’s Reform, means it will inevitably be seen through the prism of politics.

And today’s announcement frames the political clash between Labour and Farage on the Reform leader’s terms.

There is a mix of panic and resignation among Labour and Conservative MPs as they contemplate the rise of Reform, still climbing the polls after their breakthrough election victories across England earlier this month.

In both the main parties, the dominant view is that they have to take on Farage on his flagship issue to have a hope of turning things around – even if there’s a distaste for the task.

The problem both Labour and Conservatives face is that public trust on this issue in particular could hardly be lower.

Voters have seen successive governments promise one thing and deliver another on immigration. Starmer today tried to seize the “take back control” slogan from the Leave side of the EU referendum campaign – a risky move, given that the experience since Brexit has felt like anything but taking control.

Net migration has exploded, quadrupling from just over 200,000 people per year in 2019, to a peak of nearly a million two years ago. Numbers have eased since then, but only slightly.

It’s ironic that Farage, who campaigned for Brexit in front of a poster warning of an immigration “Breaking Point”, is benefitting the most – but Brexit contributed to the huge spike in numbers that we’ve seen over the past five years.

With the UK no longer as attractive a destination for mostly young, mobile European workers and students, businesses like care and hospitality have turned to countries further away to find the staff they need. Those workers in turn have wanted to bring family members with them to the UK in unprecedented numbers.

Cutting off the care sector from foreign recruitment is a drastic step that care home bosses say will make the difficult task of filling vacancies even harder. Singling out the construction industry, as Starmer did in his speech this morning, for relying on foreign labour, is also risky given the struggle the UK already faces to build the homes it so badly needs.

The reasons for the British economy’s reliance on foreign workers are deep. This isn’t an issue that can be easily solved in the space of a single parliament, without damaging parts of the economy.

If the Prime Minister fails to deliver on his pledge to lower net migration significantly in the next four years, it will represent a huge boost to Reform.

Whether he does or he doesn’t succeed, Starmer’s immigration crackdown is already a boost to those parties that believe in more liberal policies – including the SNP, Liberal Democrats and Greens.

And choosing to make this immigration overhaul such a key moment in the response to Reform will alienate some within the Prime Minister’s own party.

But with both the immigration and polling numbers where they are, Starmer hardly had a choice. He’ll have to take on Farage in hostile territory.