Keir Starmer’s Immigration Hypocrisy

A fter the United Kingdom’s right-wing Reform Party had sweeping victories in council elections earlier this month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who once said, “We welcome migrants, we don’t scapegoat them” — suddenly realized that the country is deeply unhappy with immigration. Indeed, the massive influx of foreigners poses challenges for a country of just under 70 million people; the government’s provisional statistic is that nearly 1 million immigrants arrived in the country last year alone. So now Starmer is singing a different tune, and the lyrics sound like they were written by an unpaid intern for the Reform Party.

The prime minister’s account stated the following on social media: “We’re ending Britain’s open borders experiment. For too long, businesses were actively encouraged to bring in lower paid workers, rather than invest in our own people. We’re fixing the system and restoring control to our borders.” (Perhaps unintentionally, it is a spectacular admission of guilt that implicitly acknowledges that Britain was, in fact, running an “open borders experiment.” However, the Labour politicians are attempting to blame it all on the Tories.) Starmer similarly took a swipe at immigration from his personal account, stating: “If you want to live in the UK, you should speak English. That’s common sense. So we’re raising English language requirements across every main immigration route.” (This, of course, doesn’t do much about the non-English-speaking immigrants already in the United Kingdom.) He also wrote the following on May 14: “I will take back control of our borders. . . . That means cutting migration, ending the use of asylum hotels, and ramping up our efforts to stop small boat crossings.” (We’ll have to wait a bit for policies enforced against the boats, since GBNews reported this week that a fleet of little ships crossing the English Channel to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation was redirected to accommodate a migrant-carrying boat.) He further promised that “migration numbers will fall.”

Keir Starmer’s hypocrisy is undeniable — since he expressed the exact opposite sentiments just a few years ago. Consider what he said in 2020: “Britain is economically, culturally and socially richer as a result of immigration. We should celebrate this and the huge contribution migration has made to our country. . . . I will always defend migrants’ rights and make the positive case for immigration. We must never accept the Tory or media narrative that often scapegoats and demonises migrants.” Perhaps people will see through his strategic rhetoric, and Reform will see more electoral gains in the future.

The hypocrisy goes deeper. Not only do Starmer’s recent criticisms of immigration contradict what he previously declared, but under his regime, people have been thrown behind bars for similarly critical (albeit more profane) comments about immigration and the failures of multiculturalism. Just weeks after Starmer became prime minister, Lucy Connolly said the following on social media: “Mass deportation now. Set fire to all the f***ing hotels full of the bastards for all I care. While you’re at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.” This post was shared on the evening of July 29, 2024, the tragic day that teenager Axel Rudakubana stabbed three young girls in Southport to death. Even though Connolly deleted her post within four hours,  she was sentenced to jail for more than two years for that post. (In his sentencing remarks, the judge declared, “It is [a] strength of our society that it is both diverse and inclusive.”) She appealed her sentence; a judge denied her request this week, stating, “There is no arguable basis on which it could be said that the sentence imposed by the judge was manifestly excessive.” In fact, just days ago, Starmer defended the judge’s decision to deny Connolly’s appeal — and in the same breath he claimed to be “strongly in favor of free speech.”

Connolly isn’t alone; plenty of people were punished for their speech in connection to the child-rape gangs and chaotic anti-immigration riots under Starmer’s government. David Jordan was sentenced to over two years in jail because he shouted “f***ing paedos” during a protest outside a hotel that housed migrants, and he told officers to “f*** off.” Jordan Plain was sentenced to eight months behind bars last year because he made “monkey gestures” toward counterprotesters (some of them minorities) and mocked Muslim prayer gestures. Derek Heggie was sentenced to serve just under a year behind bars for “grossly offensive” comments on YouTube, such as stating that “young white girls are being raped by these grooming gangs that worship the Prophet Muhammad.”

As Starmer freely criticizes the “open borders experiment,” people are serving time behind bars for their speech about immigration, immigrants, and the lack of successful assimilation. And not only has he let them remain there, but it was under his rule that they were sentenced.