Even as I wrote about British PM Sir Kier Starmer’s big reversal on immigration the other day I suspected that it was bullshit, both in terms of motivation and policy.

First, the motivation, which I guessed being the Reform Party’s polling and now electoral success, but which polling reveals is really these underlying factors that are scaring Starmer:

But it turns that part of the motivation is also connected to the bullshit policy, which had already been unveiled:

[T]he catalyst for Starmer’s ‘playing catch-up with Farage’ was Labour’s long-awaited and underwhelming immigration White Paper. This was the reason for his speech – to jazz it up and make it sound stronger than it is. The White Paper titled ‘Restoring control over the immigration system’ vows to bring down the numbers ‘significantly’, but read the small print and you’ll find it conveniently fails to tell us much on the ‘how’.

So Starmer’s speech was just another exercise in duplicity, disguising a useless White Paper which still sets no cap on net migration, figures that a couple of days ago were once again revised upwards by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). 

As the ever-vigilant Alp Mehmet of Migration Watch has pointed out, the White Paper is no more than an admission of failure. It is ‘based on nonsense premises and a data desert’ that still ‘offers no concrete plans to fix it or a target figure’.

Reform’s leader Farrage was quick to make the point that nobody believes Starmer on this issue, given his long history of pushing the exact opposite, open borders:

As that article points out Starmer felt safe talking about using the English language as a unifying factor, while ignoring the elephant in the room which is the types and backgrounds of the immigrants themselves, the more significant ‘integration’ factor being the complementarity of religious beliefs and culture. Others were not so intimidated:

Unfortunately for Conservatives like Nick Timothy it’s probably too late, as Reform is hammering them more than it is Labour. It’s almost impossible to break a two-party system in a geographically-base, FPP voting environment (even in proportional systems like NZ and Germany the traditional two-FPP-parties linger on), but in British History the Whigs and then the Liberals did fade away so it’s not impossible that it might happen to the Conservatives as well, especially if they don’t really change their attitudes (always ahead of policy) on mass immigration.

This article acknowledges those challenges faced by Reform but points to some realities that have already changed in ways beyond the temporary surge of the Liberal-Democrats forty years ago.

Even the headline of that graph understates the shock; it’s not just the lowest since the 1970’s but far below even that.

Astonishingly, the two big parties, Labour and Conservative, combined can count on support from only 39 per cent of all voters, which is down 20 points on their combined vote at the general election only ten months ago.

This not only reflects the sheer speed of change in British politics but a widespread public repudiation of the entire political class in Westminster.

That, plus the negative reaction to Starmer’s change of course on mass immigration, tells us that a key factor here is that both main parties are no longer believed, no matter what they say, certainly on this issue and likely on many others as well.

Nigel Farage and his party are basically hoovering up a much larger share of the Tory electorate while making big gains among Brexit voters, the working class, and women. Compared with the start of this year, the share of 2024 Tory voters, people who voted Conservative last year, who plan to vote Reform has nearly doubled, to 30 per cent.

In other words Nigel Farage is now poaching nearly one in three people who voted Conservative last July, having already poached last year a lot of people who voted for Boris Johnson and the Tories in 2019. The share of Brexit voters who plan to vote Reform has surged nearly 10 points to 54 per cent, meaning more than half of the Brexit vote has fallen in line behind Reform. The share of women who are backing Reform is also up nearly 10 points to reach 28 per cent, while the share of working-class voters who plan to vote Reform is up nearly 10 points to 39 per cent. Reform is easily the most popular party among the working class.

The article pours cold water on claims that things would turn around for the Tories if Boris Johnson were put in charge once more, pointing out that he put the pedal down on mass immigration, basically betraying the Red Wall voters – the Labour-Brexit supporters who voted for him in 2019 in expectation of saving their country. Not mentioned are his Covid lockdown policies and Climate Change and Renewable Energy ideas, which are at least as extreme as those of the current Labour Energy Minister, Ed Miliband.

Still, the next British General Election is not until 2029 and while Starmer’s u-turn on mass immigration is not believed there is still a chance a similar change for the Tories might turn the trick, especially if it’s backed up by blunt, specific, common-sense policies to greatly reduce immigration and increase assimilation with British culture.