I’ve just emerged from No. 10 Downing Street after sitting through my second major immigration press conference of the day.
First up this morning was Nigel Farage, who was typically keen to leap on this morning’s damning figures to clobber the Tories’ record.
The second was Keir Starmer, who made a rare forward-attacking speech on the topic of immigration – certainly not the typical battleground you find a Labour leader waging war on.
His reason was obvious: this morning’s figures are shocking, and yet could he be certain that voters will rightly blame the Tories given they have come out while Labour is in power.
Within the first couple of minutes of his speech, I had already counted at least four direct attacks on both the previous Conservative government’s record, and the current party leadership.
For once I actually felt Keir Starmer came across quite commanding on the issue of what has gone wrong over the past few years.
He accused Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson of presiding over an experiment in “open borders”, attacking their “chorus of excuses”, and saying his opponents owe voters an explanation.
He joked that you “have to double take” when seeing the reality of just how out-of-control Britain’s immigration system had become, blasting their legacy as “unforgivable”.
Some of this was straight from the Faragist populist playbook, and to give credit to Keir Starmer, it was a convincing display of indignation.
However, much like having to put up with Pepsi in a restaurant when you really wanted a classic Coke, if voters want to hear a convincing plan for the future, they’ll be much more satisfied listening to Nigel Farage than Keir Starmer.
The PM was much weaker on his plan to bring immigration down in the future, promising a policy white paper early next year but refusing to set out what he may do.
Crucially he also refused to put a number on what levels of immigration he would be happy with, and while I appreciate previous Tory pledges to have a cap were worth about as much as Neville Chamberlain’s ‘peace in our time’ document, voters nonetheless would appreciate a target by which to judge the PM’s success or failure.
I thought the most illuminating moment was when he was asked not about economics, but about politics – whether he understands why voters are not just angry about jobs and wages, but about Britain’s changing culture.
At this point Sir Keir gave one of the worst responses by a PM to a simple question I’ve heard in many years.
It was like someone had poured a bucket of cold water over a robot, he simply malfunctioned. One could almost hear his internal processor shouting: “Error, error, error”.
He insisted it’s an issue of economics, burbling on and on about ensuring British workers have the skills they need.
He banged on about this point for about 40 seconds, refusing to touch the question of British culture and identity with a barge pole, leaving those of us in the room bewildered.
Nigel Farage gets this, and is much more comfortable talking about the watering down of Britishness than our metropolitan North London Prime Minister.
Keir Starmer has done some homework, but he should continue revising from the Farage playbook if he wants to convince voters any time soon.
