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IF YOU THOUGHT that society had become ‘too woke’, you’ll be pleased to read that in Britain we are now living with the alternative.
Aid budgets have been slashed, the Supreme Court has ruled that trans women aren’t women, and xenophobic sentiment is now so mainstream that even the Labour Party has embraced it. Less than a year in office, and Keir Starmer has been delivering on the kind of conservative agenda that the Tories only dreamed of.
His come-to-Jesus moment on migration came after his party took a beating in local elections at the hands of the far-right Reform UK. Starmer reacted with a new plan to drastically reduce the number of people moving to Britain because the country was in danger of becoming ‘an island of strangers’. No, Island of Strangers is not a new dating show produced by ITV. Although it would probably be a ratings smash. A load of foreigners with hot bods put on swimsuits and fornicate in a villa for our amusement. The winning couple get visas.
The Prime Minister’s ‘journey’ on the subject is pretty remarkable. Only a few years back, he was the Shadow Brexit Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn, championing a second referendum and praising the contributions made by migrants. Now he’s a border hard-man, desperately trying to win voters back from Nigel Farage.
I’m reminded of the line in Batman Begins, when Liam Neeson’s character tells a young Bruce Wayne that ‘to conquer fear, you must become fear’. Presumably, an advisor got in Starmer’s ear and said something like ‘to conquer racism, you must become…racist?’
We’ve been here before. David Cameron, the Centrist Dad PM of his day, was so spooked by the rise of Farage’s UKIP party that he called the 2016 Brexit referendum in an attempt to win the argument on Europe. His failure left the Conservatives stumbling further and further to the right, with the whole axis of British politics shifting with them.
Say what you will about Farage, he’s been nothing if not consistent in his views. Immigrants: Bad. Pints and fags: Good. For decades now, he’s been spared the burden of actually having to run the country, heckling from the sidelines while successive governments have collapsed, while the electorate has run out of alternatives. Slowly, the nation has been lured closer and closer to the cliffs by his nativist call. He’s like a siren on the rocks, a Brexit Mermaid. Half fish, half Ladbrokes urinal.
Expecting immigrants to contribute positively to the society they move to is perfectly reasonable. The thing is, the available data suggests that we’re already doing this. The median migrant worker earns more than the median worker of British origin and therefore pays more in tax.
It’s unclear then which societal problem that Labour’s new strategy is trying to solve. The country needs hundreds of thousands of new homes every year and a revived public health service, but how can the government deliver on these objectives without the help of young, motivated workers from other countries?
Of course, a rising population increases strain on existing infrastructure, but Britain’s failure to invest in itself is a mess of its own making. Once an immigrant worker has paid their taxes, it’s up to the State to decide what to spend the money on.
Investing in training for young people and improving pay and conditions for care workers are good ideas, but both can be delivered without lazy rhetoric about ‘cheap foreign labour’. Bereft of detail on how the government expects to boost growth while slashing net migration, this new departure feels like nastiness for nastiness’ sake.
The problem is, no one is better at being Farage than the man himself. If the immigration pivot doesn’t work out, Starmer will have ditched his principles for nothing.
At least Tony Blair waited until his second term to invade Iraq. From 1997 until 2001, he pursued a genuinely ambitious and progressive programme focused on LGBT rights, investment in public services and the Good Friday Agreement. The economic hurdles facing today’s Labour leader are different, and the threat posed by Reform is unprecedented, but even so, what a disappointment he’s been so far.
Perhaps his lurch to the right shouldn’t be so surprising. This is the Internet age, where formerly liberal middle-aged men become radicalised online every other day. Kanye West is releasing music praising Adolf Hitler, the bloke who wrote Father Ted is an anti-transgender activist.
I’m not suggesting that Starmer has been spending too much time scrolling through Facebook in his underpants, but that seems to be the trend for men of his vintage. Much of the public discourse recently has been about how vulnerable young men are to extremist ideology on social media, but not enough has been said about how online wormholes can turn older men’s values to mush.
Peter Flanagan is an Irish comedian and writer. You can find him on Twitter @peterflanagan and Instagram @peterflanagancomedy.
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It’s a democracy…if the people want less immigration then the govt should deliver.
Lineker was right.
First off, can never understand how this fella touts himself as a “comedian”…… I’ve seen him…….he AIN’T FUNNY. More pertinent though is the fact that , just because the UK is tightening up on uncontrolled, unlimited inward migration of illegal economic migrants doesn’t automatically indicate a shift rightwards….. surely that’s just common sense……much like the stated fact that trans women AREN’T WOMEN ( crazy that we had to go to the supreme court for clarification of that). If Starmer doesn’t face up to the woke lunacy of recent years he’ll be handing Nigel Farage a lot of ammunition
@Buster Lawless: good man Buster Gormless. Managed to get trans into your comment. A real pro.
@Alan: Yet he’ll be posting as ‘Mary Linton’ in a minute.
@Alan: merci!! Trick is to READ THE ARTICLE before commenting……try it, lol
@Brendan O’Brien: appreciate you’re just trolling & you’re the ” head of trolling’” but seriously, accusing someone of woke transgenderism??? Barking up the wrong tree there little fella
‘Buster:’ ‘ a “comedian”…… I’ve seen him…….he AIN’T FUNNY.’
‘Mary’: ‘My constituency…..3 seats…..its ALWAYS been 2FF & 1FG.’
Nobody else writes like that. Just you, in all your accounts.
Lineker a man of principle ,
As for Starmer Israelis supporter
He suddenly decides that immigration is a problem after decades of Labour saying the complete opposite. More likely to do with being 10 points behind Reform UK less than a year after his disastrous government took office.
@Mark Eightfourone: After the mess they took over and the hard decisions they had to make. It is no wonder the boy wonder who promises everything but delivers nothing is doing well in the polls!
It’s the Zionists.
@Fergus O’Donnell: Nothing wrong with Zionists. They are the same as Nationalists, rightly interested in the protection of their borders and people, unlike the woke clowns whose only interest is the sell out and betrayal of their own countries and peoples
Buster lad i see the hiding that my Limerick gave you Cork pretenders yesterday, is still grating at your nerves, Just a quick question when was the last time an irish person served you any where and If there weren’t migrants working in our hospitals, and everything else ,we would be back in the stone ages
@Robert Halvey: just there….. grabbed a coffee in SuperValu ,Castletownbere —– cracking lass on checkout, Roisin……her sister Sieve used to go same gym as myself. Really don’t understand your rambling —– this woke article is about the United Kingdom
@Buster Lawless: Still using woke incorrectly as usual! maybe you team needed to be “Woke” yesterdays as they appeared to be asleep!
Israel murders a child every 45 minutes and has done so for over a year
@Tommy445: somewhere in the world a life is lost to suicide every 94.5 seconds
@Tommy445: This war could end in five minutes—if Hamas surrendered control of Gaza, disarmed, returned the hostages, and accepted Israel’s generous offer of safe passage for some of its leaders. Wars end. This one should, too. But Hamas prefers Gaza’s ruin to admitting defeat.
@honey badger: Stop defending genocide. Regardless of what Hamas does or does not do, Israel should not be starving and slaughtering a civilian population. Israel’s actions are on Israel.
@Brendan O’Brien: Bob and Tommy, this is history repeating itself; hilter was intimidated and feared the jewish people because of their success in the world. Jealousy another word for it. After this, I’m sure the jewish people have entrenched in their dna that never again will that happen. And then we have October 7th attacks, and boom, here we are today… try understanding from each side.
@honey badger: would you have said the same thing to the hunger strikers here in the 80s?
@Veil: successfully spread the plague of communism . Look up the origins of the “ successful “ who set up the Munich Soviet Republic , after WW1 . The Austrian Painter didn’t appreciate their expanding utopia .
@honey badger: A Trump envoy in Israel told families of the hostages seeking US help that Israel did not want to end the war. Edan Alexander was freed because the Americans dealt with Hamas directly behind Israel’s back. They didn’t say anything because they don’t want to anger Trump.
@honey badger: Except genocide is stil genocide and they have committed it.
Nobody with any moral decency said the Hamas attack was fair.
Most people saw the reason for the Israeli response, hard as it was. That is how historically they have replied to attacks, like the one Hamas made.
However they have taken it too far, a hard response was expected but not this hard.
Too many innocent people have died and too much infrastructure destroyed and then blocking aid. Enough is enough!
@Tommy445: But don’t mention the infants strangled burned alive by the Hamas savages because it doesn’t tie in with your antisemitic narrative.
Flanagan’s article offers a satirical critique of Starmer’s immigration policy shift, portraying it as a conservative turn influenced by political pressures. While engaging and thought-provoking, the piece is inherently opinionated and does not provide a comprehensive analysis of the broader policy landscape. Readers seeking a more balanced understanding should consider exploring additional sources that examine the full spectrum of Starmer’s policies and the rationale behind them.
@James Gorman: suppose he cannot standby and see his country totally destroyed by the cross channel invaders or maybe it’s because he is on the verge of being annihilated by Reform. Go Nigel.
In fairness he has to bring them slowly to where he wants them to be. Immigration is and always will be an issue in the UK.
first it was the Irish, then the Windrush generation, then the Pakistani and Indian people.
they have to blame somebody for things not being perfect and no longer having an empire and ruling the waves etc. The idea that they are a small nation is beyond their comprehension.
Starmer hasn’t called for an end to all immigration, and it is disinformation to suggest he did. He wants to limit immigration to sensible numbers that will not further damage social cohestion or exacerbates the housing crisis or puts unsustainable demands on the HSE and other public services. Obviously, people with important skills – like qualified nurses and people with certified building skills – will be welcome, but indescriminate immigration will be radically curtailed. There is nothing to suggest a new more targeted immigration policy will be applied in a racist manner, and glibly accusing the new policy as “racist” is deliberate disinformation. The level of immigration to permit is entirely a matter for the receiving country to decide according to its economic needs.
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