Starmer’s ‘Speak English’ Tirade Just Lost Labour Scotland & Wales.

Right, so Keir Starmer the walking, talking political equivalent of giving the entire nation the middle finger has decided migrant bashing is the answer to Labour’s electoral woes, but he carried away with it and has just caused himself more catastrophic electoral damage going forwards as a result.
You see he’s taken this position in light of the record breaking local election drubbing Labour has just had and decided that the answer to that is to be even more like Nigel Farage, even more like Reform UK, when it wasn’t so long ago he was singing the entirely opposite tune, and of course the receipts have been kept on that, but delivering a speech, which he must have signed off on, that has no drawn comparisons to Enoch Powell’s River’s of Blood speech, where Powell said of white people, “they found themselves strangers in their own country”, Starmer has gone with “we risk becoming an island of strangers”, now meaning that he can never accuse anyone else of racism, when he’s blatantly racist himself, but he didn’t stop there either. One of his big plans to is to crack down on fluency of English, saying if you want to live in the UK, you should speak English, that’s just common sense, to which the Welsh speakers and Gaelic speakers of this country have well, taken to using their own middle fingers given their languages, native languages to these islands as they are, have equal standing with English. Starmer in his racist stupidity, has probably just made sure Labour lose big time again next May when there are major elections in Wales and Scotland for Holyrood and the Senedd, as he did this time across England and he will have nobody to blame but himself.
Right, so that was Keir Starmer making the moral and positive case for immigration back in 2020, along with his leadership pledge on migrant rights that he stood on going into the Labour leadership campaign to replace Jeremy Corbyn, once more proving it doesn’t matter what he has said before, what he has promised, what he said he believes in, he doesn’t believe in anything. The only thing driving him is self-aggrandisement, what suits him best, what works for him, what delivers for him, what benefits him. Never has this country known a politician who has lied not just excessively, but about basically everything he has ever said he stood for and done so at a time, when social media makes sure people cannot ever forget, and can always demonstrate when the next lie inevitably drips from his lips.
And this time he’s done it for what? To appeal to voters who will never vote for him no matter what he does and continuing to alienate voters who backed him as a result, he is a venal, pointless and grossly inept politician driving this country towards Reform UK, the more he makes case to vote for them instead of him.
Anyone who thought Starmer represented change now utterly despise him, anyone of us who knew he represented no change still believe that now, people who hoped for the best are, now 10 months down the line since he became Prime Minister all out of patience, and those who wouldn’t vote for him before, definitely still won’t now. He has managed to alienate every demographic possible and it showed at the local elections. Yet following that came that speech yesterday.
In the wake of record-breaking losses in local council elections across England, Keir Starmer delivered a speech that has managed not only to inflame racial and cultural tensions but also to alienate key parts of the United Kingdom. And as much as we can fixate on the Enoch Powell comparisons, there’s another bit I want to focus on. By declaring in that speech that “if you want to live in Britain, you should speak English,” Starmer has crossed a line from dog-whistle racism in his politics into outright cultural ignorance of a considerable amount of very much British people as communities of native Welsh and Scottish Gaelic speakers who are absolutely enraged by this, whose languages are native to the UK and have legal status equal to English.
As such, Starmer’s comments are not only racist and ignorant but also politically suicidal in my view with Welsh and Scottish devolved administration elections now just a year away, coinciding with next years local elections. By attempting to court Reform UK voters who will never back him, Starmer has alienated Labour’s base in those countries, reignited nationalist sentiments in Wales and Scotland, and deepened the perception of Labour as an English nationalist party now.
What makes Starmer’s comments particularly toxic is their implication that speaking English is synonymous with Britishness. This is a view that is not only culturally ignorant but deeply offensive to the people of Wales and Scotland, but not uniquely so. In Wales, over 538,000 people speak Welsh, just under 20% of the Welsh population. In Scotland, Scottish Gaelic is spoken by over 60,000 people, predominantly in the Highlands and Islands, and enjoys protected status under both UK and Scottish law, as do several other native languages, Ulster Scots, Shelta, Irish and of course Cornish being others and there’s a few more besides.
By suggesting that English is the language of those who belong here, Starmer has eroded the equal standing and legitimacy of these other native tongues and it is very hard to overstate just how damaging such a statement is to national identity in Wales and Scotland particularly as a result of this, far and away the largest of those aforementioned languages. For many, language is not just a means of communication but a symbol of cultural resistance and pride. It is a crucial part of identity. Starmer’s speech, therefore, wasn’t just a dog-whistle to racists—it was a direct slap in the face to native speakers of these historic languages.
The reaction from Wales and Scotland has been swift and sharp. Eluned Morgan, Welsh Labour’s First Minister, moved to immediately distance herself from Starmer, all the more than she already was. Morgan announced a “Red Welsh Way”—a path that emphasizes inclusivity, community, and devolved governance distinct from Starmer’s increasingly authoritarian, right-leaning Reform UK vote chasing Labour. Such a public rebuke as this by a sitting Labour leader within the UK is unprecedented in recent history and underscores just how disgusted Wales feels from the direction of the UK Labour leadership.
In Scotland, the reaction has been even more ferocious if anything. SNP MSP James Dornan slammed Starmer as a “Little Englander,” as one of the more repeatable comments. Scottish Labour, which is already floundering in the polls, because Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar is seen as too close to Starmer and doesn’t push back against increasingly more unpopular policy, has come under fire for failing to defend its constituents’ cultural identity and allowing Starmer’s Westminster leadership to dictate its messaging, proving many Scottish voters right about Labour there.
This is about more than just language though, and this applies as much to non native UK languages and migrant residents of the UK as well; it’s about respect. The sense that Labour is now more interested in defending a narrow, English-dominated view of Britain than respecting the nation’s constituent parts is driving voters away. And polling reflects this. A recent YouGov poll cited by has shown a dramatic collapse in Labour support in Wales. Labour who have led Wales since 1922, are now polling third behind Plaid Cymru and Reform UK there. In Scotland, reports are that Reform UK is on track to become the second-largest party there, overtaking Labour.
But whilst on the subject of English and the importance Starmer is placing on speaking it above all other languages be they native or not it seems, we need to also talk about Starmer’s proposed new English language requirement for migrants—to a standard equivalent of an A-level in a foreign language—is not just exclusionary but completely unworkable. Currently, migrants are required to meet a level equivalent to GCSE English. Raising this bar so high ignores both the complexity of language acquisition and the practical barriers migrants face, now being built up even higher, but that’s the point, never mind if these are people capable of doing the work we so often need migrant labour to do, notably working in health, in care and in hospitality. It also overlooks something Starmer could have done to solve this that would instead have been a far more positive move, which would have been to reverse the fact that successive Conservative governments have decimated funding for English for Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL courses.
ESOL courses are essential for helping newcomers adapt and contribute to British society, it helps them to integrate, its part of the positive case for migration, but Starmer’s not about that anymore. They teach not just language but cultural context, workplace English, and civic engagement. But since 2010, funding for these courses has been cut by nearly 60%, leaving many local authorities unable to meet demand. Instead of demanding fluency at arrival, a truly moral and progressive approach would be to restore and expand ESOL provision.
Starmer had the opportunity to make the moral case for migration as he once stood for election on, by highlighting these funding cuts and proposing comprehensive support for integration. Instead, he chose the populist path, echoing right-wing slogans rather than solving real problems, because he doesn’t care about real problems, which gives all of us one big problem, which is how to get rid of him, when he seems determined to hold onto a job, he has no intention of actually doing.
None of this escapes the most chilling aspect of Starmer’s remarks though which is their disturbing resemblance to Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech. Though Starmer didn’t speak in such overtly apocalyptic terms as that speech, the underlying message—that migrants must conform to an imposed new standard or leave—is unmistakable. Powell’s speech in 1968 warned of a future Britain where immigrants would “hold the whip hand” over the native population. It was condemned at the time as incendiary, yet it helped define decades of racial politics in the UK.
Starmer may not have gone quite as far as Powell, but by invoking language purity as a condition of belonging, he is treading dangerously close to the same ideological territory and its quite easy to see how he’d go further, when those votes he’s chasing don’t materialise.
It is difficult to overstate the damage Starmer’s speech could have now done going into the Senedd and Holyrood elections, still a year away as they are, you struggle to see how he can fix this mess now. Labour was already facing serious challenges in both nations, he’s now made matters so much worse as to be unsurmountable. I cannot imagine anything more damaging to those regions than undermining their cultural identity and branding it secondary to Englishness by language.
Voters will now see Labour as a party of obsessive English nationalism, obsessed with copying the Conservatives and Reform UK and no longer being Labour or serving anyone different. This perception is made worse by Starmer’s ongoing manipulation of candidate selections, which have already seen Labour lose local membership support around the country and he’s doing it again as left-leaning candidates in both Scotland and Wales are being frozen out in favour of loyalists. Starmer’s Labour is a hollow vehicle for career politicians and anything but a movement for change.
Calls for devolved immigration policy are growing louder in both Scotland and Wales. If Westminster continues to treat migrants—and by extension, devolved nations—with hostility and ignorance, then devolving control over immigration becomes not just a policy debate but a democratic imperative. Already senior SNP officials are preparing proposals for a unique Scottish visa system. Welsh think tanks and NGOs have begun floating similar ideas.
Labour’s failure to support such proposals, or even to acknowledge the cultural sensitivities involved in immigration debates, leaves it out of step with everyone who isn’t a knuckle dragging migrant bashing racist. Devolved immigration systems could allow Scotland and Wales to meet their specific economic and demographic needs while protecting their cultural identities. Starmer’s speech may have unintentionally accelerated this conversation—and not to his party’s benefit, but that will be to the benefit of the people of Scotland and Wales.
Keir Starmer’s “speak English” speech may have been intended as a populist, vote-grabbing tactic, but its consequences will be long-lasting and I sincerely hope to have the opposite effect, driving more people away from Labour as it becomes an ever meaner and nastier party. It has alienated migrant communities, insulted native speakers of Welsh and Scottish Gaelic, undermined ESOL programs, and sparked a nationalist backlash in two of the UK’s four nations, by trying to pretend all four can be treated as one. The United Kingdom might be one state, but it’s separate identities and cultures are what make it. Starmer can shove as many union flags in his backgrounds and up his backside as he likes, but he insults what it means to be British, with vileness like this. It has exposed his Labour to accusations of racism, cultural ignorance, and political cowardice and the boot fits. And perhaps most disastrously, it has confirmed what many already feared: that under Starmer, Labour is no longer a broad, inclusive coalition but a party willing to sacrifice its soul in the vain hope of appeasing the far right.
The 2026 Senedd and Holyrood elections are shaping up to be another electoral reckoning and Starmer needs it, because he hasn’t learned from the one he’s just had. Labour has likely now been put on the path to be obliterated in Wales and Scotland and if I was a Labour MP, MS, MSP, councillor or member I’d be thinking long and hard about how much longer you’re going to let Starmer carry on destroying your party, because that is exactly what he’s doing.
For more on Starmer’s recent local election losses and his determination that chasing Reform UK votes is still the answer, check out this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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