Too late for Keir to U-turn on migration

SO SIR KEIR Starmer has announced that he wants to wean business off cheap labour and put a stop to employers taking on low-paid immigrants in favour of the masses back in Blighty.

From a person and a party keen on cheap political point-scoring this one really has taken the biscuit. When it comes to migration, who was more responsible for setting the ball rolling than Tony Blair? “In 2004 when as a Labour government, we were not only welcoming people to come into this country to work, we were sending out search parties for people and encouraging them, in some cases, to take up work in this country,” said Peter Mandelson in an interview in 2013.

It was Blair and his noxious government who turned the face of the British people against mass immigration by inflicting it by stealth, a policy no one ever voted for and which blew up in his face when Brexit came along.

It was Blair who decided to allow Eastern European migrants unfettered access to Britain in 2004 when 10 new states became members – unlike almost every other country in the EU he imposed no controls at all.

It was Blair and co who decided they wanted greater immigration from all over the world, not because they thought it would benefit Britain, but to rub the noses of the Right in the area of diversity, to create a weapon in that they could call anyone racist who disagreed with them and because they thought immigrants would be more likely to vote Labour.

It’s a bit rich for the man who has clearly modelled himself on the snake-oil salesman to suddenly turn around and realise that all those voters Labour lost to the Tories in the RedWall might have a point after all.

As it happens I am anti-Brexit and pro-immigration (please don’t write in – I’ve heard it all before) and had matters been managed a little more skilfully on the part of Blair and co, we might not be where we are today.

BUT HE was the man who changed the face of Britain without any mandate from the electorate. And among all the other damage he did – encouraging young people to get into massive debt to study for worthless degrees, weaponising the civil service, downgrading standards in public life among much, much more – this is probably the worst and most long lasting.

And nothing Keir Starmer says or does is going to change that.

We’ve been here before: remember Gordon Brown and his “British jobs for British people”? Fat lot of good that did him – or any of the rest of us.

But seeing the Leader of the Opposition wrap himself in the Union flag in a quite nakedly obvious way, to curry favour with the people he and his party have spent decades letting down, brings to mind some very wise words from Samuel Johnson: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

So, Sir Keir, over to you.