Politicians should think twice before calling each other racist because it has a nasty habit of biting them back. Best avoided, if you want my advice, Keir.
And once out of their mouths, it can get twisted. “Worried about immigration?” the Daily Mail front page screamed the following day. “Starmer says you’re racist.”
The PM didn’t say that. What he said was that Reform's policy of scrapping indefinite leave to remain was racist. Their policy, not their people.
But such a headline was inevitable and could have been avoided by not using the word in the first place. And another golden rule of politics is never to bring up Hitler or the Nazis. That always backfires - as Deputy PM David Lammy has just found out.
Let me make my position clear. It is not racist to try to control our borders or curb immigration when it is too high, whether that’s Reform or Labour or the Tories doing it.
But because Keir Starmer said it to Laura Kuenssberg, Labour Cabinet ministers had to pepper their party conference appearances in Liverpool with the word. You can hear the orders coming down from No 10: “Just get racist in there somewhere, will you? Give us a bit of cover.”
Abolishing ILR is certainly immoral - another word the PM used. I would add that it is also cruel and un-British because British values are to treat everyone justly and fairly.
Keir Starmer has set a new standard for racism that should concern us all - Nigel Nelson | Getty Images
How can it be right to threaten people with deportation who have contributed to the public finances for years? Reform argues that they can renew their visas every five years instead, if they keep their noses clean.
But that makes people who have paid their taxes and have a stake in Britain feel worried and insecure. And there is always the Windrush scandal to look back on as a reminder of what can go wrong. Is this really the kind of unkind Britain we want?
Nigel Farage says migrants are fleecing the benefits system. The figures don’t bear that out. Fewer than three in 100 of those on Universal Credit are foreign-born, yet they make up 16.8 per cent of the population.
And a study by Oxford Economics in 2018 showed that, on average, a migrant will make a net contribution of £28,000 to the economy over a lifetime.
The net contribution of the average British-born citizen is nil. That's because they have been cared for and educated on the public purse from birth, while migrants have not.
Which brings me on to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s conference speech. She said: “We can only be open to the world if we are able to determine who comes in and who must leave.” So far, so good.
Her next bit was fine, too. “I will do whatever it takes to secure our borders. Sending those home who have no right to be here. Ending the use of hotels that have done so much to divide our communities.”
But then she added, “In solving this crisis, you may not always like what I do”. Such as what, Shabana? “It means setting rules that ensure contribution to this country is a condition of living here.”
Uh-huh.
The Home Secretary continued: “For that reason, we will soon increase the time in which someone must have lived in this country to earn 'indefinite leave to remain' from five years to 10.
“I will be proposing a series of new tests, such as: being in work; making national insurance contributions; not taking a penny in benefits; learning English to a high standard; having no criminal record; and finally, that you have truly given back to your community, such as by volunteering your time to a local cause.”
The difference with Reform then is that those who already have ILR won’t be affected, and only newcomers will. We can tick off working, NI, no lawbreaking and English as fair and just conditions.
But if we use the Starmer racism standard, is that increase from five to 10 years not a teeny-weeny bit racist? If Farage ending ILR is 100 per cent racist, then what's doubling the time limit? Twenty-five per cent racist? Fifty per cent?
What happens if someone is made redundant because their company collapses, and they need benefits to tide them over for a couple of months until they find a new job? Or give up work to look after children? Do they get hoofed from the country?
And this vague bit about contributing to communities. Would delivering meals-on-wheels to elderly folk once a month do? Or must it be once a week? Would volunteering to trim hedges in the local park count? Or organising a school fete?
Or are we asking ILRs to go the full Great Thunberg and hold sit-ins at fracking sites to protect their communities from earthquakes?
This plan is going out to consultation - and, heaven knows, it needs to for more clarity. But in the meantime, let's leave words such as racist out of it. They're hard to digest. And you never know when you might have to eat them.
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