Sir Keir Starmer was accused of ‘taking the public for fools’ as he proposed an immigration crackdown – after years of backing open borders.
The Prime Minister insisted in a major speech yesterday that he had long believed in wanting to limit the number of new arrivals to Britain and booting out foreign criminals.
He warned the country risks becoming an ‘island of strangers’ and that high migration numbers had caused ‘incalculable damage’ to public services, housing and the economy.
But he was dubbed ‘Starmer Chameleon’ by the Tories who highlighted how he had said the exact opposite before entering No 10.
The Government’s long-awaited White Paper promised to curb the power of judges to block deportations and to reduce immigration to Britain by 98,000 a year.
However, the PM’s tough language – described as a ‘miraculous conversion’ by Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp – simultaneously sparked a backlash from Labour Left-wingers and trade unions, while healthcare industry experts raised fresh concerns about the impact of proposed restrictions on work visas.
During the 2020 Labour leadership contest Sir Keir said that ‘free movement has been hugely beneficial’ and ‘our immigration system should be welcoming and compassionate’.
He also backed ‘more safe and legal routes’ for people to join family members rather than risking crossing the Channel, as well as closing down immigration detention centres and giving asylum seekers the right to work.
Sir Keir Starmer (pictured) was accused of ‘taking the public for fools’ as he proposed an immigration crackdown – after years of backing open borders
Illegal migrants disembark from a Border Force vessel into Dover port on May 12, 2025 in Dover, England
In another 2020 speech he said ‘we welcome migrants, we don’t scapegoat them’. One of his ten pledges at the time – most of which have now been abandoned – was to ‘defend free movement’ and create an ‘immigration system based on compassion and dignity’.
During the campaign he signed a letter calling for the Home Office to cancel a deportation flight due to send home 50 Jamaican criminals including rapists, burglars and robbers, and to suspend ‘all future charter flights’.
In fact, even when making his maiden speech to the Commons after being elected in 2015, he challenged Tory plans for a Bill of Rights that would allow deportations. And when a young barrister he once wrote that there was a ‘racist undercurrent which permeates all immigration law’.
Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch said: ‘It was astonishing listening to Keir Starmer’s proposals. Labour are taking the public for fools.’
Mr Philp said: ‘The Prime Minister claimed this morning that, all of a sudden, he wants to control immigration. That came to me as something of a surprise. He seems to have undergone a miraculous conversion.
‘He has apparently repudiated everything he has ever believed, or perhaps the Prime Minister is doing what he always does – saying whatever he thinks people want to hear.’
Mr Philp called for a ‘binding annual cap on migration’ and that the Human Rights Act should no longer apply to immigration matters.
Shadow home office minister Matt Vickers told the Mail: ‘This is the Starmer Chameleon in action – saying one thing and doing another, talking tough while on the same day bringing through a bill that waters down our powers to deal with those who come here illegally.’
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: ‘Many of the things he said are the same things I’ve been saying for over 20 years, and that’s Starmer’s problem, insincerity. What does this man actually believe in?’
In his Downing Street speech yesterday morning, Sir Keir denied his vow to cut net migration – the number of people settling in the UK each year minus those leaving – was a reaction to Reform’s surging popularity.
‘I am doing this because it is right, because it is fair,’ he insisted. ‘I believe we need to reduce immigration significantly.
Keir Starmer announced a tighter government policy on immigration today
In this aerial view inflatable dinghies and outboard motors believed to have been used by illegal migrants to cross the English channel from France to England are stored in a Home Office compound on May 12, 2025 in Dover, England
‘That’s why some of the policies in this White Paper go back nearly three years, which is why I told the Labour Party conference “taking back control” is a Labour argument, and why, most importantly of all, inward migration is already falling with this Government.’
He was asked by the Mail if his views had changed, given he is now promising ‘enforcement tougher than ever’ just five years after calling on deportation flights to be halted.
Sir Keir replied: ‘No, I’ve always said that those who commit offences should be deported.’
However, the PM refused to consider quitting the European Convention on Human Rights or disapplying the Human Rights Act in immigration cases, as many on the Right are demanding.
Migrants continued to cross the Channel illegally, with the total since Labour came to power passing 35,000 on Sunday. Another migrant died yesterday and 60 more were rescued off France.
Net migration hit a record 906,000 in the year to June 2023. Latest official figures are due to be published next week.
