The backlash to Sir Keir Starmer’s speech on immigration has been “way overblown”, a senior Cabinet minister has said.
The Prime Minister has faced criticism for the language he used in the speech, setting out plans to crack down on legal migration into the UK, on Monday.
Sir Keir said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” if migration controls were not tightened.
Critics, including backbench Labour MPs, have raised concerns about the language, with some comparing it with a similar passage from Enoch Powell’s infamous 1968 “rivers of blood” speech.
“Honestly, I think this has been way overblown,” Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden told LBC.
Asked if he would use the phrase “island of strangers”, Mr McFadden said: “It depends on the context.
“I mean, I might, because what the Prime Minister was talking about was, we need a society with rules. We need a society with responsibilities and obligations.”
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood later backed Sir Keir’s remarks, as she held a press conference on prison reforms, though she avoided using the “island of strangers” phrase verbatim.
Asked whether she would repeat the Prime Minister’s language, she said: “I agree with the Prime Minister that without curbs on migration, without making sure that we have strong rules that everyone follows, and that we have a pace of immigration that allows for integration into our country, we do risk becoming a nation of people estranged from one another.
“And what he has described is something that I absolutely believe in, and which are the values of the Labour Party, which is a desire to see this country as a nation of neighbours.”
Pressed again on Sir Keir’s wording, she said: “Yes, it is a risk that we are running without immigration curbs.
“It is self-evidently true that people in our country will become more estranged from one another, and if we want to build a nation of neighbours, we have to take active steps to make sure that that is what happens, and that matters to me deeply, personally as well, as someone who is the child of immigrants.”
Reform UK’s newest MP, Sarah Pochin, said Labour was sounding “more like Reform than Reform”.
“Reform have got them on the run. They know what the electorate want to hear.
“They’ve seen the devastating impact of our policies on their results in these latest set of elections, and so now, yes, they’re sounding more like Reform than Reform are,” she told Times Radio.
But she said the immigration policies announced were “just a bit of bluster, a bit of waffle”.
Downing Street has rejected the comparison with Mr Powell’s speech, in which the then-senior Tory said white British people could find themselves “strangers in their own country” as a result of migration.
Mr Powell was sacked from the Conservative frontbench as a result of the speech and it outraged his senior colleagues at the time.
Sir Keir’s official spokesman said on Tuesday that the Prime Minister stands by his words.
“The Prime Minister rejects those comparisons and absolutely stands behind the argument he was making, that migrants make a massive contribution to our country, but migration needs to be controlled.”
Meanwhile, the previous Tory government’s record on migration was thrown back into the spotlight after leaked audio emerged of the shadow home secretary discussing the party’s post-Brexit plans for border control.
In a recording obtained by Sky News, Chris Philp apparently said the party had realised “just before” leaving the European Union that about half the people crossing the Channel had previously claimed asylum elsewhere in the bloc.
This meant they could previously have been returned, he said, but because the UK had split from Brussels “we can’t any longer rely on sending people back to the place they first claimed asylum.”
Referring to the Dublin regulation governing EU-wide asylum claims, he said: “Now we’re out of Dublin, we can’t do that, and that’s why we need to have somewhere like Rwanda that we can send these people to as a deterrent.”
The Conservatives insisted that the previous administration “did have a plan” and that “no one, including Chris, has ever suggested otherwise.”
“The Conservative Party delivered on the democratic will of this country, and left the European Union,” a spokesman said.
“We created new deals with France to intercept migrants, signed returns agreements with many countries across Europe, including a landmark agreement with Albania that led to small boat crossings falling by a third in 2023, and developed the Rwanda deterrent – a deterrent that Labour scrapped, leading to 2025 so far being the worst year ever for illegal channel crossings.
“However, Kemi Badenoch and Chris Philp have been clear that the Conservatives must do a lot more to tackle illegal migration.
“It is why, under new leadership, we are developing g new policies that will put an end to this problem – including disapplying the Human Rights Act from immigration matters, establishing a removals deterrent and deporting all foreign criminals.”
Labour said the recording showed Mr Philp admit the party “didn’t have a plan” for asylum as it led the country out of the EU.
“Kemi Badenoch has previously admitted the Tories led us out of the EU without a plan for growth.
“Now her shadow home secretary has admitted they didn’t have a plan for asylum either,” a party spokesperson said.
“The Tories haven’t listened and they’ve learned nothing since they were kicked out of office.”
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