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Unpicking Starmer's dog whistle politics on immigration

Plus: Expectations ahead of UK-EU reset summit + the fallacy of the 'perfect immigrant' + #ReformWatch + view from the North all in The Lead's Weekend edition

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Zoe Grunewald
May 17, 2025
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Starmer giving his migration speech Pic: UKPrimeMinister/Flickr

Labour’s new immigration white paper, unveiled on 12 May, has set hares running.

Keir Starmer’s rhetoric around migration is now unmistakably hardline. Calling the UK’s historic immigration policy a “failed experiment” and warning that we risk becoming “an island of strangers” isn’t just dog-…

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