Sadiya Ansari is an author and journalist who covers migration and the far-right.
You’d be forgiven for thinking it was Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage – and not British Prime Minister Keir Starmer – who warned his country earlier this week that without dramatic cuts to immigration, Britain risked becoming “an island of strangers.” As many pointed out, these words – from a Labour prime minister, no less – appeared to echo an inflammatory 1968 speech from Conservative MP Enoch Powell, who said that white Britons would find “themselves made strangers in their own country.”
Mr. Starmer denied that his comments were intended as an echo. But the sentiment, perhaps, isn’t so different: that migration is the problem, responsible for much of what ails the country – in this case, pressure on housing and public services. While ideological coherence is apparently too much to ask for from political parties, it’s almost a bit boring that these comments from a centre-left leader followed Mr. Farage’s populist party securing significant wins in local elections earlier this month. And the backlash was swift, even within Mr. Starmer’s own party: “Chasing the tail of the right risks taking our country down a very dark path,” said Labour MP Sarah Owen.
The spirit of the British PM’s message might sound familiar. Before various threats to our sovereignty from our belligerent southern neighbour, immigration was top of mind for Canadians in the federal election, especially the idea that there was too much of it under Justin Trudeau. That led Mr. Trudeau himself to pledge cuts of 21 per cent last fall. And while Prime Minister Mark Carney has been careful with how he has framed the issue, he takes on leadership at a time when political parties across the West that historically have been supportive of migration are now courting support on the further-right.
How a country treats its minority groups is a litmus test for the strength of a democracy. As Donald Trump ignores the rule of law to carry out deportations, the rest of the liberal democratic world should remember what we lose as societies – and who we put in danger – when governments give in to intolerance to score political points.
For starters, it often leads governments to harm their own countries in the long run. Most Western countries undeniably need immigration to support economic growth, yet moral panic consistently erupts when headlines describe “record levels” in pursuit of these goals. Britain, for instance, hit a record in net migration at 906,000 in 2023, a year in which 15 per cent of the population was foreign-born – still a lower proportion than Canada and Australia. Net migration then dropped by approximately 178,000 the following year, yet Mr. Starmer’s white paper describes Britain as a “one-nation experiment in open borders” – even though the country ended its open-border agreement with the EU following Brexit. The proposed policy changes promise a “fair” and “selective” process focusing on acceptable immigrants: “high-skilled workers” who pledge to learn English.
Some of Britain’s crucial shortages are in so-called “low-skilled” roles, especially care workers. Yet, as part of the reforms, the government proposed ending recruiting health and care workers abroad, to reduce migration and prioritize local workers. “The NHS and the care sector would have collapsed long ago without the thousands of workers who’ve come to the UK from overseas,” Christina McAnea, the general secretary of the country’s largest union representing health and care workers, told the Guardian.
Mr. Starmer rejected claims these sweeping changes could affect the British economy, arguing that it has been stagnant over the last five years. But as Politico’s Emilio Casalicchio and Noah Keate put it: “The same half-decade happens to coincide with the U.K. leaving the EU and suffering a pandemic, but who’s counting?”
Canada faces similar labour shortages, and its permanent routes to immigration have always favoured high-skilled workers, which have long left many with insecure temporary status. But Mr. Carney has said that he plans to further reduce temporary migration by reducing visas for international students and those coming here through the temporary foreign workers program, which Amnesty International has called “inherently exploitative.” And when it comes to temporary foreign workers, who are only hired if their employers can prove they are needed in this country, the focus isn’t on providing them with more secure status.
Britain is not the most extreme example of using right-wing rhetoric to shape immigration policy. But it represents a trap that Canada’s own left-of-centre government could easily fall into: papering over chronic mismanagement of files that affect all citizens by scapegoating immigration. And that would just borrow the most tired tactic from the furthest fringes of the right: blaming, rather than governing.