“I know you're angry about immigration. I get it,” Starmer wrote on social media. “Mark my words: I will take back control of our borders. That means cutting migration, ending the use of asylum hotels, and ramping up our efforts to stop small boat crossings. We will smash the people smuggling gangs at source.”
He later added, “The Tories lost control of our borders. My Labour government is going further than ever to tackle illegal immigration at its source. And Nigel Farage voted against it.”
In remarks to Parliament, Starmer said the government’s new immigration measures would result in net migration falling “significantly” over the next four years. The Home Office, however, projected that the proposals could cut immigration by 100,000 people annually by 2029, based on modeling of eight policies, reports BBC.
The new measures include banning the recruitment of care workers from abroad, raising fees on employers who use skilled worker visas, and tightening access to work routes more broadly. Starmer also emphasized tougher enforcement.
“Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control,” he said. “Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall.”
Starmer denied that the crackdown was a reaction to the rise of Reform UK, which has seen a surge in support amid widespread voter frustration over immigration. “This brings the system back into control,” Starmer said, arguing it reflects a fair and selective approach where “we decide who comes to this country.”
Labour’s announcement follows years of failed attempts by both Conservative and Labour governments to reduce net migration, which hit a record 906,000 in the year ending June 2023. The most recent figure, from 2024, stood at 728,000.
THe opposition has questioned whether the new plan goes far enough. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said, “This is nowhere near the scale of the change we need to see.”
Meanwhile, a YouGov poll reported by The Standard shows Reform UK hitting 29 percent support nationally—its highest yet—while the Conservatives dropped to 17 percent and Labour fell to 22 percent. That is Labour’s worst polling result since October 2019, when Jeremy Corbyn led the party. Reform is also projected to become the official opposition in the Scottish Parliament.
