Sir Keir Starmer has rejected the comparison to Enoch Powell after he said the UK was at risk of becoming an “island of strangers” if migration does not come down.

The prime minister’s official spokesperson said migrants have made a “massive contribution” to society but the Tories “lost control of the system” and that is the point he was making.

The remark has drawn criticism from Labour backbenchers, who have compared it to the late Conservative MP’s inflammatory 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech.

In the speech, Mr Powell imagined a future multicultural Britain where the white population would find themselves “strangers in their own country” as a result of migration.

Among those to make the comparison was the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who said on X that “Talk of an “island of strangers” shockingly echoes the divisive language of Enoch Powell”.

However, the prime minister’s spokesperson said: “The PM rejects this comparison. He said that migrants have made a massive contribution to society.

“It is also right to say that between 2019 and 2024, the previous government lost control of the system. Migration needs to be controlled, fair and people that come here should integrate.”

Asked why the prime minister used such robust language, the spokesperson said he was not going to “shy away” from the issue of immigration and the British public want it to be reduced.

He added: “We have welcomed immigrants for decades, but it’s too high and must come down. Also, it’s important for our domestic skills system, which is good for our economy.”

What has the government announced?

Sir Keir made the comment at a news conference in which measures were announced to curb net migration, including banning care homes from recruiting overseas, new English language requirements for visa holders and stricter rules on gaining British citizenship.

The package is aimed at reducing the number of people coming to the UK by up to 100,000 per year, though the government has not officially set a target.

Net migration – the difference between the number of people immigrating and emigrating to a country – soared when the UK left the EU in January 2020.

It reached 903,000 in the year to June 2023 before falling to 728,000 in mid-2024. But that is still well above its pre-Brexit high of 329,000 in the year up to June 2015.

Sir Keir said parts of the UK’s economy “seem almost addicted to importing cheap labour” rather than investing in skills at home.

However, it is not clear how the government plans to boost the domestic workforce, amid a UK skills shortage and record numbers of people being out of work.

According to the ONS, there are 9.2 million people of working age in the UK who are economically inactive, including 1.8m 18-24 year olds.

The prime minister’s spokesperson said the government is “focused on upskilling British workers” and “especially helping young people in the job sector” but did not elaborate how.

On care homes, he said, around 40,000 care workers came over on visas for jobs that did not exist, and companies can recruit from that pool.

Earlier, a number of Labour MPs came to the prime minister’s defence. Rother Valley MP Jake Richards said on X that Sir Keir is “absolutely right to warn of the risk of becoming an ‘island of strangers’.

“Millions of people across the country have similar concerns. This theme must be central to missions across immigration, employment, work and tackling neighbourhood deprivation,” he said.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick went further, telling Sky News he believes the UK “already is an island of strangers”, naming several areas “where we are a very divided and segregated society”.

However former Labour home secretary Lord David Blunkett criticised the rhetoric, saying in a speech at a University of Law graduation ceremony: “I never felt I lived in, or had a part to play in, a country of strangers.

“I thought welcoming people from across the world was a tribute to our society, where people want to make their homes, to build a life and their economy and to contribute to our society.

“I think we need to be kind to each other, but we need a much kinder national world as well.”

Sir Keir Starmer is getting used to falling out with some of his MPs over policy decisions – be it on the winter fuel allowance, his approach to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza or welfare cuts.

But on Tuesday the prime minister found himself embroiled in a row with MPs over something entirely different – his language over immigration.

The prime minister’s argument that Britain “risked becoming an island of strangers” if immigration levels are not cut has sparked a backlash from some of his MPs, and the London mayor Sadiq Khan is alarmed that his own leader is using language similar to that of Enoch Powell.

Politics latest: Senior Labour figures distance themselves from PM’s speech

In his infamous 1968 Rivers Of Blood speech, Powell warned of a future where white people “found themselves made strangers in their own country”.

It was a speech that cost him his shadow cabinet job and made Powell one of the most divisive and controversial politicians in Britain. It is also a speech that the prime minister’s team is now frantically trying to distance itself against, with one insider telling me on Tuesday the PM’s team hadn’t realised the similarity and hadn’t intended the comparison.

The politician the prime minister was trying to channel was about as far away from Powell as you could get in the 1960s, when the debate of immigration and race relations raged. Sir Keir had wanted to echo former Labour home secretary Roy Jenkins who had always argued that immigration was good for Britain, but needed to be done at a speed the country could absorb.

Take this from Jenkins in the House of Commons in 1966: “Let there be no suggestion that immigration, in reasonable numbers, is a cross that we have to bear, and no pretence that if only those who have come could find jobs back at home our problems would be at an end.

“But it does not follow that we can absorb them without limit. We have to strike a balance. That is what we are trying to do and I feel that we have been reasonably successful in recent months. We cannot lay down absolute numerical quantities, but I think that we have struck a reasonable balance and also that in the past year we have made substantial progress towards producing a healthier atmosphere, in terms of integration, on both sides – amongst both the indigenous and the immigrant community.”

One person familiar with No 10’s approach told me: “We want a more cohesive society, we are not trying to pick fights.

“But the last Conservative government let in 2.3 million immigrants [in the three years to June 2024] and during that time built about 600,000 homes. That creates competition between people and that is typically at the lower end of the market. Just issuing visas and creating a sense of an unfair system is not a way to build cohesiveness.”

If you look at polling from YouGov, it seems the prime minister is more in step with public mood than those in his party criticising him, with 41% of all voters polled on Tuesday about his “island of strangers” remarks agreeing with the sentiment and having no issue with the language.

But it is true too that Labour’s approach lands particularly well with Reform voters, with 61% of them supportive of the PM’s words.

Beyond the battle of language, there will be battles ahead too over whether the prime minister’s policies will help or hinder the economy.

Read more:
What are Sir Keir Starmer’s new immigration rules?
Starmer’s migration package is significant – but is it enough?

There has long been an assumption that higher net migration is positive of the economy and public finances, but there is growing concern in Number 10 that the benefits are being overstated, as it fails to take into account the additional resources needed for public services and the effect of lowering wages, which affects productivity growth – none of which is factored into the economic forecasts of the Office of Budget Responsibility.

There will be those in business that don’t like the cuts to visas. There will be those in government that will worry about the economic impact of cuts to visas – although the chancellor was on the front row for the prime minister’s speech on Monday. There will be those on the Labour left that will be uncomfortable about it.

I suspect the prime minister will be uncomfortable about the row over his language that has seen him attacked on both sides, as the left accuse him of trying to ape the far right and his opponents accuse him of being a “chameleon” for making the opposite argument on immigration when he was running for the Labour leadership in 2020.

But where his team think they are right is on the policy, and early polling suggests that voters from across the political divide broadly agree.