Mr Starmer, when did you abandon reason for madness?

In March, I asked what was the point of the Labour government, whose current predicament is - I argued - a product of its own making.

A few weeks - and a devastating set of local election results later - it seems like Labour has finally found its purpose. 

Is it tackling poverty? No. Is it perhaps a new focus on the NHS? No. What about inequality, then? No. Social justice? Erm, no,

It's immigration. The Prime Minister has made a huge announcement that he is determined to drive down net immigration. Apparently, this is the hill he wants to die on - and die on it he will.

This approach will only help Reform, who want nothing better than to talk about immigration at every opportunity, irrespective of facts. Why Labour wants to play into their hands I've no idea. Clearly they have learned nothing from the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, in which Labour's candidate attempted to out-Reform Reform when she called for an "asylum-seeker hotel" to be closed. How well did that go for Labour? 

Labour clearly thinks that the way to be distinctive and challenge Reform is to steal their rhetoric. There are reasons that cannot, and will not, work. The first is that colluding with the politics of racism only amplifies them. Secondly, Reform will always be controlling the narrative; even if Labour is to succeed in reducing net immigration to zero, there will always be accusations from Farage and Co that the data has been manipulated, that there are still too many foreigners here refusing to assimilate, that the PM is personally responsible for "Muslim grooming gangs" and so on. Reform's leaders could even argue - with some justification - that it is their own influence in Parliament that is dictating government successes, but that they will of course go further given the opportunity. Dancing to Reform's tune won't persuade Reform voters to switch to Labour - it will just confirm their belief that Reform is right. 

But most important it won't work because there is an obvious difference between Labour and Reform. The first is a party of government that has to remain rooted in some kind of political and economic reality, while Reform is a group of opportunists who loudly complain about everything while not even understanding basic rules for local elections. Put simply, actions in government have further-reaching consequences than a minority party with five MPs - however high in the polls they are currently riding.

This morning Keir Starmer gave a speech at Downing Street, in which he called the immigration system "broken". Every area is to be "tightened". He went as far as to state that there is a real danger that, unless immigration levels are significantly reduced, Britain will become "an island of strangers". 

I have to say, he may have a point there. I certainly felt like a stranger to this rhetoric, and admittedly I didn't recognise Mr Starmer as sounding like a Labour Prime Minister. 

His big policy idea is to make it illegal for care providers to recruit unqualified staff from overseas. That will go down well with Reform voters, surely! The people it won't go down well with are those who know anything about the care industry. Care providers have, for many years sought to recruit from abroad for one simple reason: it can be very difficult - indeed, almost impossible - to recruit locally. A combination of poor pay, overuse of zero-hour contracts, long and unsociable hours, burnout, perceived low status of work, chronic underfunding of social care and a lack of opportunity for career progression is responsible, and one would have thought that a government serious about getting to grips with this problem would firstly seek to understand the underlying causes. Instead, we just get anti-immigration rhetoric because Labour isn't serious about resolving complex problems when it can instead try to appeal to the instincts of Reform voters. 

What will be the effect of this policy? Care homes will close. Pressure will increase on local councils, who are responsible for social care but will be faced with a growing shortage of providers. Many vulnerable people will be left without access to care. What is deeply worrying is that social care is currently in overdue need of reform, something the government seems unwilling to deliver. What is needed isn't a Prime Minister using social care to justify his anti-immigration stance, but meaningful engagement with the more pertinent challenge of how to make social care work. 

Curiously, the government's own data shows that 26,100 people used the health and care worker visa route in the last year, down from 143,900 in the previously year. The graph below, taken from the government website, clearly outlines this and calls into question the government's determination to press ahead with a policy that seems unnecessary and will have damaging economic and human consequences.

Of course, foreign nurses will be welcome and will be one of the exceptions to the rule - it's just the  "unskilled" care workers who keep our social care system ticking over who are the problem. Coming over here with their work ethic and caring outlook - how dare they? Especially when these jobs can just be done by just anyone, even those who are completely unsuited to care work.

While there are huge problems with social care that need addressing and fixing, this really isn't one of them. Use of the care worker visa system is down to its lowest level since its inception in February 2022. So why is the government pandering to prejudice rather than reinforcing its own facts? 

It's economically illiterate as is the whole drive towards cutting net immigration to arbitrary levels, but of course that seems to matter not to Labour. In The Lord of the Rings, an exasperated Galdalf witnesses how low Saruman has sunk in collaborating with enemies. "When did you abandon reason for madness?" Gandalf asks - a question that really should be put to Mr Starmer.

Of course, social care is just the tip of the iceberg as far as Mr Starmer's vision is concerned. This is to be the most through overhaul of the immigration system in history, because... well, Nigel Farage. International students are another target, which will not go down so well with UK universities struggling to remain financially viable without the contributions of overseas students. And then we have the new policy that "A-level standard" English is required for all migrant workers, despite the fact that many British workers do not have such competence in their own language, and that learning about original and creative writing is of limited advantage on a construction site, in a care home, in a hotel or in industries such as IT. There are, in any case, better measures of linguistic competence. 

Immigrants will also have to be resident in the UK for a decade before they can apply for citizenship, up from five years currently.

My big question is why this is necessary. Neither the Prime Minister nor his Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, can provide any real justification for this other than to speak in general terms about how "broken" the immigration system is. They provide no factual data or evidence; indeed, if they were to do so such evidence may suggest that the current approach is working. 

Enver Solomon from the Refugee Council accused the Prime Minister of indulging in a "populist performance" that would "deepen divides". Mr Solomon said:“We need an immigration system that enables integration and contribution into communities and helps to heal divides, rather than deepen them further.” I agree, but clearly the Labour government feels its credibility depends on echoing Nigel Farage's sentiments and being seen to act "tough". 

Caron Lindsay, editor at Liberal Democrat Voice, has written this piece this morning. It is well worth reading. She observes: "I’ve heard Labour referred to as the Red Tories before. Today they are basically Red Reform. Starmer is no better than Farage. A couple of weeks ago, Farage had a go,  out loud in our Parliament, about 'cultures alien to ours'... [Now] he apes it. Every racist in our country now thinks they have the Prime Minister on their side."

It is disgusting rhetoric that any Labour Prime Minister should be ashamed of. It's also short-sighted, because neither he, nor his party, will benefit from an approach that only serves to normalise and legitimise Reform's agenda. The Labour and Conservative parties have been far more responsible for the  "rise of Reform" than Nigel Farage, Arron Banks or Richard Tice.

I ashamed of the Prime Minister and I am ashamed of his government. They have willingly embraced "madness", abandoning not only reason but the economic competence and commitment to improving social care that Labour was so keen to promote at the general election only ten months ago. I feel genuinely sorry for my friends in the Labour Party who are today struggling to reconcile the xenophobic "Island of Strangers" speech with their own belief in Labour as a party of social justice.