Keir Starmer's Farage Tribute Act BACKFIRES HILARIOUSLY!

Right, so Keir Starmer is continuing to drive Labour towards extinction as the first proper batch of polling since his horrendous Island of Strangers speech has dropped and it is record-breakingly bad for him. Not only has he now got his worst approval figures on record, but he’s now more disapproved of than approved of by his own party’s voters for the first time, for the first time the Green party is viewed as just as favourable to Labour voters as Labour itself is and if he was hoping to suck up votes from Reform UK voters, then he’s failed at that too as his popularity amongst them has worsened as well! It’s almost as if migrant bashing isn’t necessarily what is driving people to Reform!
Meanwhile that same racist mindset, that determination that attacking migrants is the answer to Labour’s problems is backfiring as much abroad as it is at home, and the criticism has come from far and wide, not just from the publics and media commentators like me, but also from politicians and now religious bodies too, telling Starmer to tone it down. This Morgan McSweeney masterplan that Starmer is following, undoubtedly that is what this is, is backfiring hard and hilariously, because frankly it couldn’t happen to a nicer person.
Right, so Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is in freefall. Having been voted in claiming to be a safe pair of hands to guide Britain out of the chaos of Conservative rule, a change and a departure from the vileness of 14 years of that, Starmer now finds himself overseeing a mess of his own making by having been anything but a safe pair of hands, anything but change, as 9 months of Starmer has been to spread further Tory hardship and terrify everyone, from the elderly, to the disabled to migrant workers now. In a desperate attempt to keep on chasing Reform UK voters though, the de facto opposition in terms of the numbers as they are, Starmer has abandoned the moral case for migration he once made, abandoned the Labour Party’s traditional values becoming a lousy Tory tribute act, and abandoned the trust of voters by lying about everything he once said he stood for. His now-infamous “island of strangers” speech, loaded in racist rhetoric as that was, that demonised migrants instead of making the moral and the frankly economic case for them, exemplifies what has come to define his leadership – lies, broken promises and taking whatever populist position he and McSweeney think will win back voters - but also defines the modern Labour Party, which is just disgusting more and more people.
Therefore it shouldn’t surprise anybody that it’s failing.
Starmer’s decision to embrace the language of Farage has backfired in spectacular fashion. According to YouGov’s latest political favourability ratings, Starmer’s net favourability has plummeted by 12 points in just one month, now sitting at -46, his lowest rating ever. Even more tellingly, his support has cratered among Labour’s own base: a 34-point drop among Labour voters leaves him more unpopular than popular with them for the first time. That is not just a slump, that’s a collapse—a direct consequence of a deliberate political strategy that has alienated core supporters while failing to attract the voters he’s chasing.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage—whose populism and anti-immigration stance Starmer is trying to copy—has seen his ratings improve across the board. That is, voters prefer the original to the tribute act clearly, but I think there’s more to it than that. Even Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, enjoys a net positive rating among Labour voters, unlike Starmer. And in a further blow, Labour voters now view the Green Party as favourably as they do Labour itself, a obvious sign that the party is haemorrhaging its progressive credentials as it kisses up to the hard right Faragists and losing its left flank as a result. There are a large number of Labour seats where the Greens came second in 2024, those seats could be ripe for the Greens taking now.
More broadly, the Labour Party is now seen unfavourably by 65% of Britons, the worst result since YouGov began tracking this metric in 2017. This is a catastrophic position for a party that should be riding high given the Tories' decade-plus of crisis and the fact that they are still less than a year into power. Instead, Starmer’s leadership has reduced Labour to an uninspiring, ethically bankrupt entity, unsure of its purpose and message, as Starmer flip flops from one populist issue to another.
The turning point—and perhaps the symbolic heart of this collapse—was Starmer’s “island of strangers” speech. In it, he tried to spin a vision of immigration, where it was turning Britain into a place where people no longer recognised each other, where strangers outnumbered neighbours. Enoch Powell knock off as it was.
But this rhetoric rings fails even further because Starmer is a massive hypocrite on this too especially in light of recent revelations. You seen while Starmer was railing against migrants—the poorer ones, but the ones that are important to keeping our economy ticking over, our NHS workers, our carers, our hospitality workers etc—it emerged that the UK government is simultaneously drafting proposals for a new investor visa, targeting wealthy foreigners willing to fund “strategically important industries” like AI and clean energy. Here’s an excerpt from Wealth Briefing covering this:
‘More than three years after the UK scrapped its Tier 1 Investor Visa for wealthy foreigners, reports say the Starmer administration is considering a new programme to entice those who want to invest into important sectors. It shows how the "golden visa" market remains in flux.
While some jurisdictions are retiring “golden visas” or being ordered to do so, the UK is reportedly considering a programme for foreigners who invest significant sums in the country.
This week, Bloomberg reported on the possible development, noting that UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s government wants to offset the economic blow from recent tax hikes and wider curbs on work permits.
Sometimes controversial, citizenship/residency-by-investment programmes have arisen, and sometimes been retired, in dozens of jurisdictions. US President Donald Trump plans to introduce a “golden card” visa open to those who pay $5 million as a route to citizenship. In late April, by contrast, the European Union’s top court condemned Malta for allegedly commercialising citizenship, a position that could cast a shadow over other programmes in the EU bloc.
The report on the UK said ministers are considering proposals for an investor visa which would be open to people willing to fund sectors seen as strategically important by Starmer’s administration, such as artificial intelligence, clean energy and life sciences, according to people familiar with the matter.’
So this means that while Starmer warns about Britain becoming unrecognisable due to migration, his party is happy to sell access to the country to the wealthy migrant elite.
This double standard is as glaring as it is cruel and of zero economic sense. Starmer’s anti-migration rhetoric is not about principle or policy coherence—it is about political posturing. His government will welcome foreign billionaires but scorn nurses and carers from overseas who keep the NHS and social care sectors running, keeping us healthy, keeping us able to work. To add insult to injury, Labour is at the same time scrapping the Care Worker visa, even as Britain faces chronic shortages in health and social care.
Starmer’s duplicity reaches new heights with his proposal for third-country hubs though, where asylum seekers whose claims are rejected in the UK could be relocated. In effect, this is Labour’s own version of the Conservative Rwanda plan—a policy Starmer himself dismissed as a gimmick not long ago, because of course he did, and then in true duplicitous fashion does it himself and calls it something different.
His attempt to secure Albania as one such hub resulted in international embarrassment this week though. During a recent visit to Tirana, Starmer was hoping that Albania host one of these processing centres, he brought it up in a joint press conference with Albania’s PM. But the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama at said Press Conference made it quite clear Albania was having nothing to do with it, stood next to Starmer as he was, when he said it. It was a failure not just diplomatically, but symbolically. Starmer you see had brought only one media outlet along with him on this trip, GB News, GBeebies, the Farage-supporting outlet, so clearly hoping for favourable anti-migrant coverage from an outlet known for its migrant bashing. Instead, he got nothing and walked away humiliated.
Starmer wanted headlines about being “tough.” Instead, he gave Britain headlines about failure, hypocrisy, and duplicity. His pandering to Reform UK backfired on every level.
Perhaps most damning of all is that this approach isn’t even working with the voters Starmer is trying to court. One would think that if Labour's leader abandoned moral clarity to pander to Farage supporters, some electoral dividend might follow. Instead, Labour has lost ground even among Reform UK voters, according to YouGov. In fact, the Green Party is now more favourable among both Labour 2024 and Reform 2024 voters than Labour itself is.
So this suggests that Starmer has completely misread the electorate. Migration might dominate the rhetoric of Reform UK’s leaders, but its voters are evidently not single-minded on the issue. Starmer’s assumption and its an assumption a lot of us make, that pandering to anti-migrant sentiment will draw these voters to Labour underestimates the likely wider swathe of reasons people have goen to Reform—and instead insults them in the process. Think about it, for as awful as the leadership is and I’m as guilty of any as referring to Reform UK as a bunch of knuckle-draggers, certainly I think that boot does fit their leaders, you have to appreciate that thanks to them being the only alternative to traditional parties that get anything like the same level of coverage, any talk of change and people now wanting to vote for that, now Starmer has proven he’s a liar and can’t be trusted no matter what he says – which is why nothing he says or does will make any difference for Labour and why he has to go for them to see a reversal of fortunes -
Worse still, it alienates those who have traditionally supported Labour precisely because it stood for compassion, fairness, and social justice and as mad as it might sound to some people, it is for those that some voters are backing Reform, because a lot of us know they are lying to these people as well. If a party represents true establishment change, it doesn’t get that media attention and its for that reason it shouldn’t surprise us that the biggest don’t knows in YouGov’s leadership approvals, went to to the two Green party co-leaders. They get precious little airtime by comparison. Starmer is not only losing the new voters he seeks—he is actively repelling the ones he already had.
Criticism of Starmer’s rhetoric has not been limited to the usual political opponents or we alternative media mouthpieces who put out video content on such things. 25 senior faith leaders from Christian, Muslim and Jewish backgrounds have signed an open letter urging him to tone down his migration messaging. They warned that the language being used was dangerously divisive and risked stoking fear and resentment, but they assume sadly, that Starmer cares. The letter states that:
‘We are writing as faith leaders to ask you to reconsider the language the government uses when discussing migration, following the rhetoric used to announce the Immigration White Paper earlier this week.
Our concern is that the current narrative, which presents only one side of the debate, will only drive public anxiety and entrench polarization. When you refer to the “incalculable” damage done by uncontrolled migration, you are in danger of harming migrant members of our communities and strengthening those who would divide us.
We recognise that there is public concern around migration and what it means for our society, which of course must be addressed. But this must be done in a way which is principled, and lowers the temperature of the debate, respecting the dignity of all who make up our nation. People have come to the UK under the rules set by successive governments, paying whatever fees and surcharges, to work, contribute and pay taxes. Framing this as somehow unfair only feeds the politics of grievance and division.
In our work as faith leaders, we see that real and lasting integration comes through building relationships. It is through sharing experiences that we come to recognise our common humanity. We urge the government to think more holistically and positively about fostering good integration; the recommendations of several government-commissioned reviews into integration remain on the shelf.
In the context of a genuine debate on migration, we are appealing to you to also affirm those things that would bring us together, across our diversity. Only by doing so can we actually fix the systemic problems faced by those within our current asylum system and humanitarian protection schemes. Promoting fair policies that balance the needs of host communities with real opportunities for people restarting their lives after fleeing war, conflict, and persecution is a necessary start.
Finally, we wish to speak up for all those whose voices are rarely heard in these debates but who have been at the sharp end of recent rhetoric. These include many from within our own faith communities who have built new homes and lives in the UK, becoming part of our national story and fabric. Our country would be so much poorer without them.’
They are not alone in what they are saying. Human rights groups, progressive commentators, and even some Labour MPs have expressed horror at the party’s direction. Yet Starmer seems determined to persist with a strategy that isolates his base, fails with his targets, and reduces political discourse to populist soundbites devoid of substance.
As if things could not get worse, Labour now faces the prospect of even deeper internal division over proposed cuts to welfare and social security. These measures, which we know are coming in the next few weeks, are already prompting talk of significant rebellion.
The optics are horrible right now for Labour all in all#: a Labour Party attacking migrants and preparing to slash support for the poorest Britons, whilst cutting the legs out from services we all rely on, held up by so many migrant workers, who work hard and pay taxes after uprooting their lives, or their lives having been uprooted for them, coming here in the belief that this is a civilised society, which is steadily becoming less and less so.
The implications are obvious. With record-low favourability, haemorrhaging support from Labour voters, being overtaken by the Greens in key voter groups, and facing a rebellion over austerity-style cuts, Starmer is steering Labour into annihilation. Instead of this eliciting fear amongst the populace though, because of him, because of how he has chosen to lead, how he is choosing to run the country, Labour’s demise will probably come at this rate to the sound of applause and cheers.
Keir Starmer’s attempt to transform Labour into a small mind nationalist party that panders to the populist right is not just a moral failure—it is a strategic and electoral catastrophe. His decision to demonise migrants in the hope of winning over Reform UK voters has alienated Labour’s base, embarrassed the party on the international stage, and proven ineffective with the voters he’s trying to target.
Rather than presenting a compelling vision for a fairer, more inclusive Britain, Starmer has chosen to mimic the language and strategies of the very forces Labour once existed to oppose. His abandonment of the moral case for migration in favour of xenophobic pandering has resulted in historically low polling, deep internal divisions, and growing public disillusionment.
If the Labour leader truly wishes to lead a government that can inspire trust and drive progress, he must reject the politics of scapegoating and fear, he needs to ditch McSweeney. He must listen to faith leaders, activists, and the party’s own voters—many of whom now prefer the Greens or Lib Dems and may already have left Labour and joined them. He must rediscover the moral clarity that once made Labour a vehicle for hope, not division. The problem is, he never believed in any of that. He lied about it. And its because of his lies that actually, no matter what he does, it will fail. There is no trust in this man and its for that reason that the longer Labour takes to ditch him, the worse matters will get for them. They are sitting on their hands waiting for the end.
The electorate does not need another Nigel Farage. We don’t need the one we’ve got. We need something better. We need real change, not just weasel words about it. Starmer doesn’t get it, he never will, he’ll never be trusted again and labour is toast while they are still led by him.
Meanwhile if Keir Starmer is so bothered about migration, he might want to stop taking actions whilst cosplaying as GI Joe that may end up creating them. To which end, why is he letting Israel use a UK RAF base in Cyprus to attack Palestinians from? Oh sorry, that’s not confirmed is it and that’s because when asked about it, Starmer’s government blocked that question even though it came from one of his own MPs! What are you hiding Starmer? Get all the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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