‘Cheap foreign labour’ – that is how Keir Starmer denigrates the migrant carers having a look after your family members

I would like to grasp what precisely occurs, within the top-level conferences the place the high minister makes a decision to be even more difficult on immigration. Is there any person in there announcing: “This will not halt Reform. This will not make Reform less obnoxious. This will not make them more moderate, and it will not stop people voting for them. All it will do is make your own supporters despair.” If there may be, are they screaming it, or whispering it, with a thousand-yard stare?

It’s dangerous sufficient that the federal government has swallowed this anti-immigrant rhetoric wholesale; that it’s made up our minds to land its misdirected toughness at the care staff is dumb on such a lot of ranges. First, Starmer’s declare that that migrant care staff are “cheap foreign labour”. Pause to notice how atypical it’s, to listen to this sort of denigratory language coming from a human-rights legal professional. It could also be unfaithful that migrants are riding down wages. People who make use of care staff may just inform him it’s unfaithful; knowledge may just inform him it’s unfaithful. The final vestige of religion on this Labour govt used to be that it rooted its arguments in truth. As it ceased to be the anti-austerity celebration, and dropped its guarantees that anything else would recover, it might – on the very least, and it wasn’t a lot – now not simply say any previous bilge that examined smartly with the imaginary Angry Red Wall Inhabitant.

Anyone who’s ever interacted with any care staff feels an enormous debt of gratitude to them, and sure, newsflash, that is regardless of whether or not they have been born in the United Kingdom. If you already know any care staff, it’s as a result of they’re taking good care of you or somebody you like. It’s a gorgeous tight bond, way more intimate and significant than any you’ve ever had along with your MP. To listen that we possibility turning into an “island of strangers”, as Starmer has mentioned, on account of foreign-born care staff – smartly, it’s arduous to muster the correct outrage as it’s simply so patently unfaithful.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

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