We are a diverse nation, not an ‘island of strangers’ | Letters

Letters: Readers respond to Sir Keir Starmer’s speech on immigration

Re Keir Starmer’s speech this week (Starmer accused of echoing far right with ‘island of strangers’ speech, 12 May), my father-in-law came to the UK as a refugee in 1979, with his wife and eight children. Forty-six years later, he speaks almost no English. He reads Chinese newspapers and watches Chinese television stations. Every four years he screams “Jia you!” (“Go for it!”) at Chinese athletes competing in the Olympics.

From the sitting room of a council house in Thamesmead, the family started a food business that now employs 18 people, including three of the eight children. The other kids went to grammar school and became lawyers, accountants, bankers and pharmaceutical reps. My father-in-law votes Conservative. He reveres Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister who (reluctantly, as it turned out) agreed to take in his family and 10,000 other boat people. He eats roast beef at our house on a Sunday (albeit with chopsticks, and chilli sauce instead of horseradish).

I’m from Limerick, Ireland. I came to the UK to work for a big law firm. I wasn’t rescued by the merchant navy from a sinking ship in the South China Sea as they were. My emigrant story is very different. I’ll always be Irish, but the UK is my home, just as it is my father-in-law’s.

He hasn’t lived in China for 70 years, but he’s still Chinese. He’s also British, and a Londoner. Nationhood and nationality are complicated. My children feel British, English, Irish, Vietnamese and Chinese. What it means to be “British”, “American” or “Irish” isn’t calcified. It constantly evolves. Immigration doesn’t lead to an “island of strangers”, rather to a diverse, modern nation. The UK shapes immigrants, and in turn this country is shaped by immigrants and their descendants.

We don’t need to make this country great again. We do need to remember what makes Britain great.
Ian Lynam
London

• I listened to Sir Keir Starmer’s speech on new immigration rules. Never did I think I would hear a Labour prime minister signing up to the racist trope that it is immigration that brings pressure on housing, health and other public services – particularly when workers from foreign countries, most of them highly skilled, are the backbone of those services, due to the failings of previous governments of all colours, in education and capacity-building.

I look forward to the huge government investment in social care to enable appropriate pay and conditions for care workers of either British or overseas nationality. I for one volunteer to pay higher levels of tax to raise the money. I am also anticipating the private sector investment in career structure and better further and higher education for those workers.

I remain sceptical about how many MPs from any party will be advising and encouraging their own children to go into adult social care, care work and the care sector, as managers or frontline workers.

Meanwhile, I pay tribute to the British, Polish and Filipino carers who helped me and my family look after my parents in their frail old age, at home and in residential care. A diverse and brilliant workforce.
Dame Stella Manzie
Leicester

• Keir Starmer’s speech on his supposed plan to reduce net migration was egregious in many parts, but what is the most jarring to me is his claim about the risks of the UK turning into an “island of strangers”.

Just a week before, my wife and I heard that some neighbours in our town were organising a “street party” for VE Day. Given that both of us are immigrants who relocated to the UK recently, we’ve never experienced a street party before, apart from what we saw on TV and news footage, so we decided to check it out, despite not knowing anyone in that neighbourhood. I was a bit apprehensive about turning up uninvited, but we were immediately welcomed and introduced to everyone at the party. We went from strangers to being neighbours in just a matter of minutes.

On our way back, my wife and I couldn’t help but reflect that in the home we lived in before moving to the UK, we didn’t even know the name of people who lived next door to us for years. So it was rather bemusing, to say the least, to see the prime minister on the TV a week later warning the citizens of this country that immigrants like us are turning their home into an “island of strangers”.
Tony Cha
Christchurch, Dorset

• In his immigration speech, Sir Keir Starmer warned of an “island of strangers” and “forces that pull our country apart”. True to form, his stance leans only slightly left of his main rivals. But he does have a point – just not the one he thinks he’s making.

Anthropology and evolutionary psychology suggest our brains evolved for close communities. Robin Dunbar calculated that we can maintain meaningful relationships with about 150 people and recognise up to 1,500. In modern cities, that means most of our neighbours will inevitably be strangers. This feels unsettling – not because of immigration, but because of how we’re wired.

What we need to feel at home isn’t tighter immigration controls, but stronger communities: local events, shared spaces and more opportunities for connection.

To stop “the forces that pull us apart”, we don’t need divisive “them and us” rhetoric. We need action that brings us together – friendship in diversity. And if we truly want highly qualified British people contributing to the economy, why make it harder for those already doing so to become British? Is that a fair rule – or just a good soundbite?
Rudiger Pittrof
Retired NHS consultant, London

• Integration is not something that happens under the cosh. It is an organic process that inevitably takes time and needs favourable conditions in which to thrive. It requires goodwill and genuine motivation to flourish. And it will not happen when one side is fearful and the other hostile.

Keir Starmer is fanning the flames of confrontation. Does he have any idea of the terror and apprehension these remarks will engender in our immigrant population? If his motivation is to outdo Nigel Farage, he is doomed to failure and one term in office.
Shirley Osborn
Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire

• My wife is an immigrant. She also set up and runs a volunteer group in my local park, bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds. In addition, she volunteers for several charities, has chaired the school’s parent-teacher association, and knows more people in our community than I ever will. Suggesting that immigration will make us an “island of strangers” is as misguided as it is offensive. If Keir Starmer is trying to test how far he can push Labour’s supporters before we can no longer vote for him, then I think he’s just found out.
Jon Collins
Mitcham, London

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