Starmer is wrong: the NHS & social care need immigrants to survive
Keep Our NHS Public have issued the following statement in response to the speech made by Keir Starmer outlining the government’s Restoring Control Over the Immigration System White Paper.
On Monday morning, Keir Starmer doubled down on the scapegoating of immigrants, who he claims have caused ‘incalculable’ damage to the UK. Starmer’s desperate pandering to the racist politics of Reform in an attempt to win back votes after the council elections is dishonest and dangerous.
The truth is that the UK would be unable to function as a society if it weren’t for immigration. Every aspect of public life would be significantly damaged were it not for those who have moved from abroad to live and work in the UK. Major cultural, educational, political and civic institutions would cease to function, especially the NHS and care system.
The NHS crisis is often blamed on migrants, and given by right-wing commentators as a reason to curb rates of immigration. However, it is a myth that migration burdens the NHS, which can and should have the capacity to provide excellent healthcare to all who need it. Migrants use the NHS around 40% less than people born in the UK, in almost every part of the service.
Furthermore, the NHS and social care would collapse without overseas workers. Around 20% of all NHS workers and 30% of adult care workers are from abroad. In the year to March 2023, the majority of people entering the UK on Skilled Work Visas were coming to work in health and social care. Furthermore, 77% of the public are against limiting the number of people coming to the UK from abroad to work as doctors. Around 35% of doctors are from abroad and 27% of nurses and health advisors.
Keir Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ comment parrots the infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech by Enoch Powell in which Powell said Britons “found themselves made strangers in their own country”. Starmer’s speech risks legitimising the politics of hate peddled by Farage and Trump.
We must dispel the myth that immigration harms society, and particularly the NHS. As Richard Burgon put it, austerity and cuts are to blame for the NHS crisis, not migrants.
Starmer’s comments will not boost the Labour vote. Right-wing media has scoffed and Nigel Farage has already responded by calling Starmer a ‘fraud’. Instead, Starmer and those loyal to him have spent the last 24 hours desperately trying to neutralise the Enoch Powell comparison. A Downing Street spokesperson said:
“Absolutely, 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.”
Asked if Starmer stood by what he said yesterday about Britain being at risk of turning into an “island of strangers”, the spokesperson replied: “Yes.”
If it sounds like a completely indefensible mess of a position, that’s because it is.
Keep Our NHS Public has always recognised the huge contributions migrants have made to the NHS and social care. Any campaign for decent healthcare that is free at the point of need for all can only be an anti-racist one.
In the middle of an NHS and social care crisis where there are 131,000 care staff vacancies, 3.5 million adults are being denied the care they need according to a recent parliamentary report. The current system is already creaking under enormous pressures, with 500,000 missed home care visits in one year. The government’s proposal to allow fewer people into the UK to work in the sector is clearly absurd and must be opposed. Paired with even more cuts to NHS budgets and the growing involvement of the private sector in healthcare, this also paints a worrying picture for the future of the NHS.
This is why we must do all we can to tell the real story about the NHS and care crisis and offer real solutions. The NHS crisis is driven by deliberate underfunding, increasing privatisation and fragmentation of services. We also need to continue our work to end migrant charging and demand a return to the founding principles of the NHS.
We will also be joining the People’s Assembly ‘No More Austerity 2.0’ national demonstration on June 7 in Central London. We will be marching for the NHS and in solidarity with migrants and encourage all who can to join us.
We are calling on the government to listen to the public. Most want an NHS that is available to all, funded by taxing the rich. Most oppose the disability benefits cuts and the drive to war. The majority also stand with the tens of thousands of NHS staff whose jobs are now at risk. We need a strong, united movement that can stand up for the NHS and its workers.
Join the NHS bloc on the People’s Assembly National Demonstration.
- You can follow Keep Our NHS Public on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, and sign up to their mailing list here.
- This article was originally published by Keep Our NHS Public on 13th May 2025.
May 18, 2025
By David Osland
I can’t be the only Labour Party member deeply angered by Keir Starmer’s “island of strangers” speech. For much of the early part of this week, my finger hovered perilously over that “cancel direct debit” button more closely than ever before.
After all, I’m three-quarters an immigrant kiddie myself and a socialist to boot. But the dismay extends well beyond the people our leader had in mind when he told lefties not to let the door bang their arses on the way out three years ago.
The sense of shock extends to some of his most supine cheerleaders, while media reports suggest renewed plotting on the part of a sizeable contingent of Labour MPs, many already unhappy at scrapping Winter Fuel Allowance and the coming vote on cutting disability benefits.
Starmer’s stock among the commentariat and his own backbenchers now stands at its lowest ebb since that crushing defeat at the Hartlepool by-election. At the very least, he has reduced himself to the standing of damaged goods.
His net favourability ratings have descended into minus territory not just with the electorate but among paid-up Labour members too. And it’s not as if there isn’t a stack-heeled potential contender for the role of Lady Macbeth lurking in the wings.
Meanwhile, a bevy of progressive politicians – from Zack Polanski to John McDonnell and Ed Davey – have directly compared the words “island of strangers” to Enoch Powell’s notorious 1968 invocation of white people becoming “strangers in their own country”.
But apply the principle of charity here. Surely no Labour prime minister would wilfully channel the grandstanding xenophobic rhetoric of the most incendiary racist outburst delivered by any mainstream political figure in British history?
Instead, let’s work on the assumption that when making a parallel argument, there exists a natural inclination to reach for the same malign symbolism.
I’m doing my best here, but I’m not 100% certain in giving Starmer the benefit of the doubt. What is notable is that he hasn’t strenuously distanced himself from such assertions. At the very least, the insinuations appear not entirely unwelcome.
In any case, there was no mistaking Starmer’s central message. He talked of “forces pulling our country apart”, and described “a one nation experiment in open borders” as a “squalid chapter” that has done “incalculable” damage to this green and pleasant land.
The chief proponent of a second referendum on Britain’s decision to quit the European Union then closed his populist tour de force by rolling out the key Brexit slogan of taking back control of our borders.
For the benefit of slow learners, he even doubled down on a trip to Albania on Thursday, with a press pack consisting solely of GB News, presumptuously announcing an agreement to establish “return hubs” in that country.
This came as news to Albanian prime minister Edi Rama, who slapped him down with the insistence that no Rwanda-in-the-Balkans deal had in fact been signed.
Labour’s historic record on racism is far from pristine. The Crossman Diaries, Richard Crossman’s insider account of the first two Wilson governments, records then-Home Secretary James Callaghan telling a cabinet meeting just months after Powell’s calculated invective: “No more bloody immigrants.”
Crossman himself – earlier in his career a Bevanite leftwinger – confided: “Immigration can be the greatest potential vote loser for the Labour Party if we are seen to be permitting a flood of immigrants to come in and blight the central areas of all our cities.”
Future Home Secretaries under Blair, such as Jack Straw and Charles Clarke, repeatedly targeted asylum seekers, the Pakistani community and women who observe Islamic dress codes as an easy means of appealing to the reactionary predilections of Middle England.
New Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown famously called for “British jobs for British workers”, a word-for-word repetition of the National Front’s best-known 1970s maxim.
Even Ed Miliband drenched platforms in the Union Jack while signing off on coffee mugs emblazoned with a demand for immigration controls as official Labour Party merch.
Starmer’s emulation of these tawdry precedents – did somebody say squalid? – looks like a transparent response to the kicking administered to Labour at the recent local government elections by innumerable Faragist feet.
The plan from election-winning genius Morgan McSweeney is said to consist of ensuring that the next election is a two-horse race between Labour and Reform.
Even given the poll-attested reality that Labour is hemorrhaging more support to the Greens and Lib Dems than to Britain’s homegrown populist right, the thinking runs that the threat of Farage in Number Ten will bring progressives reluctantly back into line.
But anyone with the most rudimentary political antennae must know a strategy of nowhere else to go redux isn’t going to work.
I don’t know who needs to read this – well, I do actually – but the axiomatic loyalty of leftists and people of colour and the conditional backing of more-left-than-right types has frayed; indeed, I suspect it has irretrievably snapped.
After Bristol Central, Islington North and Blackburn, the psychological barriers against casting a so-called wasted vote have largely dissipated.
If the polarisation reaches the point of a straight choice between Reform and Reform Lite, millions will opt for Reform. Millions more will reject Reform in either iteration. This is the very definition of a lose-lose situation.
Starmer recently branded the Tories a “dead party walking” and contended that it is inexorably heading for “brain-dead oblivion”. Perhaps he should look in the mirror.
David Osland is a member of Hackney North & Stoke Newington Constituency Labour Party and a long-time leftwing journalist and author. Follow him on Twitter at @David__Osland
Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/number10gov/53839153838 Creator: Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Str | Credit: Simon Dawson / No 10 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
The union has said Labour’s ‘hostile environment on steroids’ will do ‘great damage’ to the NHS and social care
The government’s new immigration measures could ‘accelerate an exodus of migrant staff,’ according to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
New research by the union shows tens of thousands of migrant NHS and care staff plan to leave the UK for countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Just under half (42%) of those surveyed said they are already planning to leave the country. Two-thirds of them intend to move somewhere other than their home country.
The RCN surveyed 3,000 internationally educated healthcare staff, including care workers, nursing support workers and registered nurses.
As a result, the RCN estimates that up to 55,000 migrant nursing staff are considering leaving the UK.
The warning comes after Keir Starmer made a big speech about immigration on Monday. In the speech, he said the government will stop the recruitment of care workers from abroad.
The NHS currently has 34,000 unfilled registered nurse posts. Vacancies in England’s care sector are as high as 131,000.
RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Professor Nicola Ranger, said: “Our report shows thousands of migrant nursing staff are ready to leave the UK. This situation is bad enough, but now the government’s cruel measures could accelerate this exodus, doing great damage to key services.”
Ranger described the decision to close the care worker visa and make migrant nurses wait longer to access benefits as “the hostile environment on steroids”.
She added: “They pay tax and work in our vital services, they deserve the same rights. Sadly, this government is intent on pushing people into poverty, away from the country, and with no credible plan to grow the domestic workforce in sight.”
“Rather than pandering and scapegoating, ministers should focus on what patients and vulnerable people need – safely staffed services. Without the measures we’re calling for, our amazing colleagues from overseas will continue to leave.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
Migrant councillor gives stark warning on why PM’s migration plan won’t work
A Labour councillor and general election candidate who was born overseas has warned that doubling the length of time that migrants like her have to wait to apply for citizenship won’t work.
It came hours after Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the policy as part of a raft of white paper measures aimed at curbing migration to the UK.
Dr Alex Bulat, Labour county councillor for St Ives South and Needingworth in Cambridgeshire, took aim at the policy on X, saying she still had her British citizenship letter (sent by then-Home Secretary Priti Patel) pinned on her wall.
Bulat, believed to be Labour’s first Romanian-born county councillor, suggested that the people behind the change didn’t understand the psychology of migrants like her.
“What people advising on this change probably don’t get is that people like me having to wait 10 years instead of five years (six in my case) to apply for citizenship will not make people already here more likely to leave.
“It might make people in certain sectors who are informed about citizenship before (academics, workers in multinationals etc) more likely to go to other countries that have more accessible permanent residency and citizenship processes.”
But for most people, she said, it would simply mean more fees and less security while they plow ahead with the process.
‘Island of strangers’ comment sparks fresh row
In his speech, Starmer said the UK risks becoming “an island of strangers”, and that high net migration had done “incalculable damage” to British society.
Bulat took aim at the phrasing, warning all it would do is shift the progressive vote to the Greens and Lib Dems, while making migrants feel less welcome.
READ MORE: Immigration white paper: Starmer has the authenticity issue Miliband once had
“I am not sure it is “persuading” Reform voters as why would you go for a lighter version of a more restrictive immigration policy instead of an even more restrictive one if you were supporting Reform.”
The clampdown has also seen backlash from trade unions, with Unison saying ahead of the speech that the NHS would have collapsed long ago without migrants, and the GMB union warning after that scrapping care visas could be “potentially catastrophic” for the NHS.
Meanwhile several Labour and former Labour MPs have condemned his language, warning it risks inflaming anti-migrant sentiment – with suspended Labour MP Zarah Sultana even comparing it to the language of Enoch Powell.
However, recent polling from the Good Growth Foundation, shared with LabourList, found that 54% of Britons, and 49% of 2024 Labour voters, believe legal immigration is too high.
Pollster Luke Tryl of More in Common said: “Recognising as he does that migration is part of our national story and rejecting ‘pulling up the drawbridge’, but insisisting more control is needed and we should have greater expectations on contribution/integration does imo a fairly good job of meeting median public opinion.”
Labour and the Home Office have been contacted for comment.
Time to lift the ban on work for people seeking asylum!
Keir Starmer’s divisive rhetoric on migrants this week comes as Parliament discusses and votes on the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. Campaign group Refugee Acton describe the measure in its current form as “a joke. Not only does it criminalise people seeking asylum who arrive by boat, ignoring the fact there are no safe routes for them, it also fails to include plans to life the ban on work.”
To challenge this – and to explain why the issue of the right to work is such a critical one for people seeking asylum – Refugee Action are this week launching a new report Time to Lift the Ban.
The report demolishes the myth that Britain’s employment rights act as a ‘pull factor’ for people who seek safety in the UK. “In reality,” says the report, “all available evidence suggests that employment rights play little or no role in determining people’s choice of destination when they are seeking safety, and are largely unknown to people seeking asylum before they arrive here.”
Yet being able to work can still be hugely important to people seeking asylum after their arrival – for their mental health, self-esteem and independence, and for their socio-economic inclusion. Allowing asylum applicants to work is also good for economic growth and saves money.
The numbers of people waiting six months or more for an asylum decision has more than doubled in the last decade. Tens of thousands of people are banned from working while awaiting an asylum decision. They are forced to depend on inadequate state support in overpriced private accommodation.
Lifting the ban on work would bring the UK in line with other OECD states. It’s also supported by 81% of the voting public, with high levels of cross-party support.
The National Institute for Economic and Social Research found that lifting the ban would increase tax revenue by £1.3 billion, reduce government expenditure by £6.7 billion, and increase GDP by £1.6 billion. The All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Poverty and on Migration jointly found the ban on work to be a component of “destitution by design” and concluded that lifting the ban would give people seeking asylum “the chance to support themselves and escape poverty and destitution.”
The Scottish Government proposed a pilot scheme to lift the ban, and argued that current restrictions on the right to work form part of a system that “does not align with the values of dignity, fairness and respect.” Focus on Labour Exploitation found that the work ban is putting people seeking asylum at “significant risk of exploitation” through informal employment.
In the wake of the UK’s racist riots in 2024, the Government committed to building “a culture of cohesion”. “Lifting the ban on work must be a priority in this context,” says the report. “Alongside the use of hotels and mass accommodation sites, the ban has contributed to conditions of de facto segregation in the UK asylum system, actively preventing people from settling in their local communities, ostracising them and making them vulnerable to additional racist ‘othering’ and ultimately to violence of the kind we saw last summer.”
Dismay at Starmer
Sadly, Keir Starmer’s speech bemoaning how high net migration figures have done “incalculable damage” to British society looks set to continue this othering. The remarks caused widespread dismay – not least from within the Labour Party. “The Prime Minister knew what message he was sending — and who he was sending it to. Disgraceful,” said Zarah Sultana MP.
Nadia Whittome MP agreed, saying: “Anti-immigration policies stoke division and harm people, our public services and economy, while doing nothing to address the real problems caused by austerity. Let’s offer solutions not scapegoating.” Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP and Kim Johnson MP also added their voices.
“We must end, not embolden, the hostile environment,” said Apsana Begum MP, adding that she would vote against the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill this week.
Former Shadow Hone Secretary Diane Abbott MP described the PM’s comments as “Starmer mimicking Nigel Farage,” calling it “a shameful strategy which will not work.”
Writing in the Guardian after the recent local election results, John McDonnell drew similar conclusions: “If Labour seeks to ape Reform, then voters will largely opt for the real deal and vote Reform, while at the same time Labour will alienate supporters who are aghast at the party adopting Reform-like positioning on immigration.”
This is true. Three-quarters of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t backed Labour in a general election in 20 years. And for Labour voters in 2024 who switched to another party in 2025’s local elections, migration did not even feature in their top five reasons for doing so. What did? The removal of the Winter Fuel Allowance, the failure to reduce the cost of living or improve public services, broken promises and a failure to stand up to the rich and powerful were the key factors determining their alienation from Labour.
Starmer’s remarks about Britain becoming an “island of strangers” were briefed out as something that Labour campaigners frequently heard on the doorstep. Many MPs felt the comments echoed Enoch Powell’s infamous 1968 speech.
Former Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle responded: “We ARE becoming strangers — not because of migrants, but because of insecure work, (anti-)social media, lack of shared spaces and low wages preventing socialising. Bring back youth clubs, fix community centres, support workers. Invest in our country — don’t scapegoat migrants.”
Support the campaign to #LiftTheBan by signing Refugee Acton’s open letter here.
Image: Migrants in the English Channel. Creator: Sandor Csudai. Copyright: Sandor Csudai. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
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