Gimmickgration - How Immigration is Being Weaponised Across the Board

Illustration by Will Allen/Europinion

The hope of change that came with the election of the Labour government in 2024 has now all but dissipated and seems unlikely to return anytime soon. As the party apes Reform, one has to wonder what they feel they have to gain from this new perspective. The Labour Party is becoming a chameleon to the political agendas that seem most salient in this country at any one time. What happens if the Liberal Democrats gain traction? Will we then see Keir Starmer don a tutu on a trampoline whilst juggling à la Ed Davey? 

I don’t mean to be dismissive of Keir Starmer, but this outrageous leap onto a fast-track tightrope to populism that he currently seems to be doing could well be misjudged when looking back in history. He will stumble and fall, because at heart, I believe he does not believe this. These are words that have been put into his mouth. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time” comes to mind. We have a stretched care sector as it is. Why do those carers now need to have university degrees to be able to live and work in our country? Why is an already struggling workforce now further under pressure? 

It seems like idiocy from someone who once rightly stated, “If you really probe, people are anxious about their job, anxious about their home, their children's future. Obviously it gets translated into things like immigration, but that is nothing new.” This was Keir Starmer when he first entered politics as an MP in 2014, and yet he is aping the worst kind of rightwing politics that we have seen in this country for many decades and the tide is only intensifying. Rhetoric in politics is an extremely powerful thing, though, and for easy answers, politicians will turn to immigration as a means to mask their own problems. 

T'was ever thus, when Boris Johnson jumped on the Brexit bandwagon, one he wasn't sure he believed in. 

There are currently huge societal issues within the UK, and it is erroneous of Keir Starmer to ignore these concerns. Some of his critiques may be valid, with regards to integration of certain communities, but this is as much a failure of our political institutions, as the communities themselves. The failure of political leaders to understand and empathise with the situation of people who find themselves in a land where they are strangers means that politically they can never integrate- they are prevented from doing so. Keir Starmer needs to understand this, and the rhetoric spread by Nigel Farage et al needs to cease, as it does no one any good. 

I cannot for the life of me understand how Morgan McSweeney is justifying the change in political tack for Keir Starmer, but the comms strategy again is something that befouls Labour at every turn. Core messages are absolutely essential for political agendas, and in the absence of one, the lazy rhetoric that one grasps for is apparent and frankly terrifying. It’s terrifying because rhetoric isn’t where it ends- it never is, because extremists will always want more. Labour will never be enough for the disillusioned who have flocked to Reform because one of Reform’s main draws is that they are anti-establishment. However ironic this may be, given their elected representatives, it is this attitude that Keir Starmer needs to embrace in an alternative way. I initially voted for Keir Starmer to be the leader when I was once a member of the Labour Party, because I viewed him as a shrewd communicator and legal mind. 

I’m unfortunately afraid to say that this hasn't panned out in the way it should, but when our elected officials reach for immigration as a tactic, we can almost see the disintegration and deterioration of politics happening in front of our eyes. I don’t know what will happen between now and the next election- there is thankfully still time for Labour to change course- but they really need to, or the thoughts that our system is currently a uniparty will only grow stronger. Gimmickgration won’t help Labour, but it will destroy them in the long run. The sad thing is they probably won’t even know their destruction is coming.

Image: Eliot Lord

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