On its surface, this month’s dramatic anti-immigration rally in London looked like a resounding condemnation of immigration into Britain. Indeed, with an estimated turnout of up to 150,000 attendees, this protest was likely the largest far-right gathering in British history. This, combined with recent polls that suggest at least 40 percent of the public now espouses anti-immigration views, indicates a clear reversal of the cooling of anti-immigration attitudes following Brexit.
However, policymakers in the Labour government have yet to answer one key question: why is anti-immigration feeling only intensifying when the Labour government has consistently escalated its crackdown against illegal immigration since taking office? Ironically, although Prime Minister Keir Starmer has adopted a very tough stance on immigration, the anti-immigration crowd simply doesn’t see any tangible impact of this approach in their daily lives. Instead, they continue to paint him as their adversary “Two Tier Keir,” largely because they are more likely to see moments when these policies fail, such as the relatively few incidents of violent crime committed by migrants and refugees in Britain.
Accordingly, what the government should take away from the rally’s turnout is that its extensive attempts to build trust and win over this part of the electorate with harsher immigration policies have completely failed. The more prudent strategy would therefore be to tackle the escalating cost of living crisis, growing wealth disparity, youth unemployment, among other pressing social issues. Focusing more on these concerns would appeal not just to Labour’s traditional base but to a wide swathe of the electorate, which importantly includes a significant proportion of those that attended the rally last weekend.
Despite what most anti-immigration advocates may claim, the Starmer ministry is much stricter on immigration than even the preceding Tory governments, which were hardly receptive even to legal migration. In fact, net migration to Britain almost halved from 2023 to 2024, mainly because of restrictions that the Sunak ministry introduced on education and work visa applications. Not only has the Labour government kept many of these restrictions on legal immigration in place, but it also announced more restrictions of its own. Such measures correspond with the recent promotion of key Blue Labour figure Shabana Mahmoud to the key Home Office portfolio in the latest cabinet shuffle, and Starmer’s earlier (and supposedly unintentional) homage to Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech when commenting that Britain was in danger of becoming “an island of strangers.” All these actions should be seen as major concessions to the anti-immigration crowd, but this part of the electorate retains its hostile views of the incumbent Labour government.
Compounding matters further is how Labour’s traditional base, which was already in noticeable decline regardless of the party’s supermajority in parliament, is growing disillusioned enough with Labour to begin considering defecting to other parties. Indeed, according to Persuasion UK and YouGov, a stunning 80 percent of Labour’s voters in 2024 have since expressed openness to voting for either the Lib Dems or Greens in future elections, largely because of Labour’s rightward pivot under the Starmer ministry. In contrast, only 11 percent of Labour’s voters in 2024 have since become more interested in supporting Reform. As a result, even if Starmer was successful in winning over a majority of “Labour-curious” Reform supporters by abandoning Labour’s progressive ideals, any such benefits would be outweighed by the spectacular electoral defeat that it would incur in the process. Labour is already paying the price for this with its historic unpopularity.
Yet, progressive policy is where Labour can claw back some credibility. Rather than placing so much emphasis on tackling illegal immigration with relatively little to gain from it electorally, it should focus on developing more far-reaching policies to lower the cost of living, growing wealth disparity, youth unemployment, and other persistent social crises.
Such troubles will only get worse as the labour market comes under increasing strain even as the government continues to implement its “Get Britain Working” plan and steers its Employment Rights Bill through parliament. Young people are especially at risk here as entry-level positions become less prevalent due to the increased adoption of AI. As young British voters tend to favour parties on the left, this is a key demographic that Labour could win over if it develops more ambitious and flexible strategies to tackle the ongoing youth unemployment crisis and pre-emptively block any increase in pressure on entry-level jobs.
Thus, in the aftermath of the Unite the Kingdom rally, the Labour government’s migration policy stands at a crossroads. If it sees its punitive actions against immigration as a sunk-cost measure and doubles down, it will likely only deepen its already-costly failures to win over the anti-immigration crowd and win back most voters that brought it to electoral victory last year. This would merely pave the way for Reform to win the next general elections. On the other hand, if it moves away from these reactionary policies and instead champions more productive solutions to the crises looming over the British economy, the Labour government has an opportunity to reaffirm its progressive credentials and rebuild the public’s trust in its leadership. Only by addressing the root economic causes of public discontent can this government hope to turn its fortunes around.