KENT STAND UP TO RACISM - STATEMENT ON KEIR STARMER'S
PROMOTION OF ANTI-IMMIGRANT RACISM
Migrants are not strangers! They are our friends, our
neighbours and our workmates.
Kent Stand Up to Racism (KSUTR) strongly condemns Keir
Starmer’s “Island of Strangers” speech and new immigration white paper that
boosts the arguments of Reform UK and the far right. His speech introducing his
government's new immigration white paper at Downing Street on Monday, 12 May
2025 was a full-on embrace of the racist myths that drive racist and far-right
parties. It could easily have come out of the mouth of Nigel Farage or Suella
Braverman.
Starmer claimed that immigration has done
"incalculable" damage to the UK and vowed to "finally take back
control of our borders". At one point, Starmer channelled Enoch Powell's
notorious 'Rivers of Blood' speech when he argued that migration needed to be
restricted to prevent the UK becoming an "island of strangers, not a
nation that walks forward together".
The UK is not an island of strangers - and in Kent, we know
this whenever we walk down the street, and whenever we go into our groups,
schools and hospitals. Migrants built our society and continue to maintain our
NHS and our public services. He chose to focus on care workers, whose only
"crime" is to provide the care for 140,000 residents of care homes.
What has done "incalculable" damage to the UK is 46 years of
neo-liberal economics, which has left the richest 1% of the UK holding the same
amount of wealth as 80% of the population.
It was the common decency of people in Kent and around the
country who came together last August, when violent racists threatened to
attack refugees and migrants, and to fire-bomb mosques. It is common decency
and a commitment to fighting racism that will defeat the threat of Reform UK,
not pandering to their poison.
KSUTR will continue to campaign against racism, whether it
comes from REFORM UK, the Tory Party or when it is pushed by the leader of the
Labour Party.
Migrants Welcome. Racists Out.
Kent Stand Up to Racism- 14/05/2025
Supported by Green Left
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