What did the Lib Dem conference and the Labour Party conference have in common this year? Union jacks. Nay, the number being waved at the end of Starmer’s speech would have done credit to the last night of the Proms.
Suddenly, patriotism is okay, and everybody is embracing it. Where Reform leads, other parties follow. Reform talks about secure camps for illegal migrants, and suddenly Kemi Badenoch is persuaded of their merits.
Reform talks about tackling the abuse of ILR (Indefinite Leave to Remain), nd Labour jumps on the bandwagon. Farage may have only five MPs, but he is setting the agenda.
Yet Starmer has the gall to call Nigel’s policies racist and to claim Reform is about dividing Britain. I thought we had got past the stage of believing that proposals to control immigration indicated racism.
Reform is currently leading every single opinion poll, so Starmer’s implication is that those indicating that voting intention are applauding racism.
Really? Is that how millions of Britons think of themselves? By making that silly accusation, Starmer will have alienated a swathe of his own “Red Wall” voters who will be affronted at the term.
Keir Starmer's attack on Reform has turned the clock back on racial progress in Britain - Ann Widdecombe
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Anyway, if Reform is racist to be considering changes to ILR, then what does that make Shabana Mahmood, who has outlined her own changes to this much-abused provision?
Racism is no longer a charge which sticks. With daily reports of thousands of illegal migrants arriving on our shores, local hotels being taken over to accommodate them, and no end to it in sight, Britons know, on the evidence of their own eyes, that there is a problem and know also that it will not be solved by pretending that it is somehow indecent to acknowledge and tackle it.
ILR does indeed make a mockery of our border control. Figures show that over the next four years, some 800,000 migrants will get leave to remain in this country sine die.
Based on the behavioural patterns of those now in receipt of it, about half may never work, but ILR brings with it full access to our welfare system. They also have the right to bring in family and dependents.
The policy has been caricatured by political opponents as meaning that people who have lived here for decades, paid taxes and National Insurance, married British citizens, have British children and have paid for their pensions will be deported. Root to the power of infinity.
Farage himself gave a neat example: Afghan refugees will be given protected status, but not if they have been going back for holidays, thus proving that they do not fear the Taliban.
In short, every case will be decided on its merits. We are not abolishing the concept of helping genuine refugees nor of letting people stay here, but we need to make sure that those who do stay are contributing to British life, speaking English and adding to the economy. That promotes cohesion rather than division.
I have no doubt the policy will be refined over the time between now and the next General Election, as will savings and other figures, and I have also no doubt that the government will cherry-pick our plans as they don’t seem to have any of their own.
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