In an undisguised bid to hit back against the shock success of Reform UK at local elections which rocked England's political foundations at the start of May, Sir Keir Starmer has chosen – rather than to call out the hypocrisies and bigotries of the Far Right – to lurch his government in the direction of those very same xenophobic populists with the launch of his proposals on immigration – a legislative bombshell which unashamedly seeks to put the "white supremacist" into "white paper".

As he launched his assault on net migration, the Labour leader railed against the possibility that the country might become what he called an "island of strangers" – clearly excluding from his vision of a utopian national community anyone who might happen to live outside the island of mainland Britain itself – all those from Shetland to Scilly, from Northern Ireland to the Isle of Wight.

That day, the Prime Minister also took to social media to post his view that "if you want to live in the UK, you should speak English," adding that "that’s common sense." It's not clear whether he believes that his newfound Anglophone jingoism will benefit his party's electoral hopes in the Welsh-speaking regions of Wales when they go to the polls to elect the devolved nation's parliamentarians next year.

Mr. Starmer's cynical attempt to look whiter than white and to prove that there's no room for red in his party's flag will dismay those people who still believe that Labour should be fighting to empower the most marginalised in our society and will only embolden Mr. Farage's followers to grow more brazen in their hate-fuelled rhetoric and shift even further into the extremes of nationalism.

As his backbenchers grumbled in the shadows, one former Labour MP went so far as to publicly accuse Mr. Starmer of recalling the language of Enoch Powell, the senior Conservative fired from the top Tory team in 1968 after delivering an anti-immigration speech condemned at the time as “evil” and “racialist” even by the mainstream right-wing press. 

Indeed, while Starmer spoke of Britain becoming an “island of strangers," Powell had talked 57 years earlier of British people finding themselves “strangers in their own country”.

The following morning, The Guardian’s front page announced that the PM had been “accused of echoing far-right rhetoric," and the BBC’s political editor pointed out that the prime minister’s phrase was one which “some, particularly on the left, regard as repulsive."

Well, of course, Sir Keir’s hardline stance on net migration was never going to please the left-leaning outposts of the media. But it also riled his adversaries in the right-wing tabloid press.

Implacably antagonistic toward Starmer's woke agenda, the Daily Express declared it had heard it all before and that it was time for the government to deliver on its promises. The Daily Mail complained that with its “recycled policies”, Labour was taking us all for fools. 

Meanwhile, however, the premier's landmark announcement was knocked off its prime position on the front pages of most of the national papers by the news that counter-terrorism police were investigating suspected arson attacks on two London properties linked to Mr. Starmer – incidents which the prime minister and the leader of the opposition immediately characterised (in the absence of any actual facts) as an “attack on democracy."

So, what had Sir Keir’s announcement achieved – other than the possibility that it might have prompted one of his ideological opponents to try to burn down his house... perhaps because they felt that his firebrand rhetoric went too far or didn’t go far enough... although (even before the arrests of a 21-year-old Ukrainian and a 26-year-old Romanian), it had never seemed particularly likely that the culprit would turn out to have been a disgruntled university boss, driven to buy a box of matches and a can of gasoline by the government’s latest kerbs on international student numbers… or a gang of human rights lawyers irate at how overworked they're now going to be…?

Sir Keir’s newfound right-wing radicalism certainly won’t have persuaded those on the Far Right to vote Labour for a change, especially after his recent modest deal with the European Union, described by the Daily Mail as “Starmer’s surrender” and by the Daily Express as a “betrayal of Brexit Britain."

His hardline stance on immigration won’t convince racists and bigots to support the cause of social justice. It will merely boost their faith that their beliefs are justified, and, by normalising their hatred and lies and by appeasing the likes of Farage, will shift the political center further toward their demagogic extremes.

And, of course, it surely won’t help Labour regain the trust or confidence of its traditional supporters in the leftist, liberal, and centrist enclaves of UK politics.

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For, as the Express put it, the prime minister’s plan provoked “fury from all sides – including his own MPs."

So, well done, Sir Keir. In less than a year since your landslide election victory, you’ve managed to alienate pensioners, businesspeople, people with disabilities, trade unionists, immigrants, Brexiteers, Europhiles, left-wingers, right-wingers, and centrists, while at the same time ceding unprecedented influence and power to the forces of fascism, even as the nation came together with its allies to mark the eightieth anniversary of the defeat of Nazism in Europe. 

Those of us who’ve previously urged Keir Starmer to be authoritative, decisive, radical, and bold in his policy choices had never meant for him to become authoritarian, divisive, extremist, or insane. Yet, one can't avoid imagining that gleam of Blair-like fervour starting to glint, as yet faintly, in his power-accustomed eyes.

One might wonder, with some trepidation, what he might be dreaming of doing next. For now, it’s unclear how he may be planning to celebrate the anniversary of VJ Day in August, say, but let’s hope that declaring war on China is firmly off the table.

It seems ironic that, shortly after the Prime Minister announced his plans to cut immigration, the government published figures showing a massive drop in net migration; it had fallen by almost 50 per cent last year. This unprecedented dip was largely the result of the kerbs on visas for family members of international students, a policy shift introduced by the previous administration, one which has had devastating impacts on the finances of many British universities, universities whose intake of overseas students Labour now plans to limit further and even to tax. 

These latest immigration numbers demonstrated that Mr. Starmer had no need to bring in his draconian new measures after all. But, of course, his anti-immigration rhetoric had never been calculated to reduce net migration (he doesn’t really care about that) but to reverse the flow of votes to Reform UK.

In a further bid to woo back disaffected voters, Sir Keir also signalled last month his willingness to perform a partial U-turn on probably his single most unpopular policy, the removal of winter fuel payments as a cash benefit for all pensioners, including even the wealthiest. 

The policy, originally enacted by the Conservatives, had cost the taxpayer billions in order to put a few hundred pounds not only into the hands of those struggling to heat their homes but also into the pockets of millionaires.

The incoming Labour government had decided to restrict this allowance to those who actually needed it, but this eminently sensible early policy initiative had been seized upon by the right-wing press as a rallying cry against the new administration, at the same time as it had emerged that Sir Keir had accepted lavish gifts from wealthy donors; not a great look for a premier portrayed as planning to let the elderly freeze to death in their own homes.

When, under pressure from his own MPs, he eventually last month hinted that he would act to alleviate the impacts of this policy on those hit worst by it, his promise seemed far too little, far too vague, and far too late.

In response, Nigel Farage had swiftly announced that, if elected into Downing Street, he would reinstate those universal payments in full. It’s easy, after all, to make generous pledges if you have no intention of ever keeping your word.

Sir Keir Starmer is now just a month away from marking the first anniversary of the day he was swept into power. But he will have remarkably little to celebrate. 

Sure, he’s secured trade deals with India, the EU, and the United States. He’s started to renationalise the nation’s dysfunctional railway network, given pay rises to key public sector workers, resolved long-running industrial disputes, invested heavily in the health service, policing, and defence, and witnessed a huge fall in net migration and unexpected economic growth.

Yet, he remains staggeringly unpopular.

And, with the painful choices of a comprehensive government spending review on the way, no amount of pandering to the unpalatable tastes of the Far Right – the Farage Right – is ever going to change any of that.