Some Comments on a Recent NS Piece
Writing for the New Statesman, Ben Walker, co-founder of Britain Elects, has argued that it is unwise for Starmer to criticise Farage’s policy on indefinite leave to remain as racist1. His reasoning is this: voters are consumers of vibes, not policy. The current vibes are on immigration and are to Reform’s, not Labour’s benefit. Criticising the party with which the median voter is in closest affinity as racist is therefore a mistake, because the median voter will take it as an attack on themselves.
I am familiar with the good work of Britain Elects, but not with Walker’s oeuvre as a writer. I don’t know if this is particularly representative of his thinking, or if it is just a quick one-off. Nonetheless, it has sufficiently irritated me into writing a brief retort. I despise his article. I despise it because it epitomises a kind of cowardly, ethics-free reasoning about political strategy that the political mainstream in general and Labour in particular badly needs to be rid of. It is cowardly because it refuses to take an interest in the basic question of whether or not Farage and his policy are in fact racist; and if so, what the social and ethical obligations facing the British Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party are.
Farage’s policy of abolishing indefinite leave to remain is xenophobic. It says to migrants that no matter how long they have worked here, no matter how much they have contributed in taxes, no matter how much they have done for their communities, they will not be considered equal to anyone else. It says that people should be measured by their birth status alone, and not any other attribute. It says that in Britain, one kind of person is not equal to another person.
Nigel Farage and Reform freely admit that abolishing indefinite leave to remain will introduce extraordinary anxiety and disruption to people’s lives2. It will force a good number of people who have lived for years in Britain to leave, or otherwise face the substantial and arbitrary costs in terms of money and time required to obtain citizenship. Not all will manage it. Families will be broken up. People who fail to gain citizenship will no longer be secure in their position in the UK, and for many at the mercy of the visas their employers have sponsored, undermining the rights in the process.
It is likewise impossible to ignore the political context in which Farage is pursuing this policy. Over the Summer, far-right organisers succeeded in pushing an ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ campaign, wherein individuals raised, or in many cases spray-painted, the St. George’s Cross3. This campaign is doubly insidious, in that it seeks to make a clear statement to ethnic minorities and migrants while having the obvious plausible deniability of inviting people to ask what’s wrong with flying the flag. The answer is nothing: the problem is flying it with the intention of sending a signal to minority groups that they are unwelcome in the UK. The intention means the flag is, in such a moment, no longer just a flag: it is an act of hostile communication.
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, hosted the largest far-right rally in living memory, during which several police officers were assaulted4. Following last year’s anti-asylum hotel riots, during which far-right thugs attempted to burn down hotels believed to contain asylum seekers5, there has been another round of asylum hotel protests6. We have, it seems, learned nothing from last summer’s violence. We have reflected on nothing, changed nothing, done nothing.
It is worth labouring these points, because it is in this context that Farage has pursued his policy, and it is in this context that Starmer has finally chosen to speak out. What mainstream political elites have to say about racism matters. When mainstream elites make clear that something is racist, it helps build a taboo against it. It makes clear that certain kinds of rhetoric and certain policies are beyond what is acceptable.
I agree with Walker that the public does not have strong policy views: it is precisely for this reason why it is so important that the public hears a view contrary to that of Nigel Farage. I disagree with him entirely on the question of strategy. As I have previously written on this substack and in a recent piece for Renewal7, there is every reason to believe that accommodating far-right positions on immigration undermines, rather than helps, the electoral prospects of mainstream parties.
More important than this, however, is the responsibility of the British Prime Minister to the ethnic minority groups of the country. To agree with Walker’s view is to say that if only a plurality of the country holds a racist belief, it is a political mistake to speak out against it. It is to say that the job of a politician is never to lead, only to follow. It is to say that before speaking one’s mind, one should check in with a pollster.
One could point out that the polling on indefinite leave to remain is not nearly so clear-cut as Walker makes out8, or that contra Walker polling suggests that the median voter thinks the Reform party is racist9. But to do so would be missing the point. Politics is about values, it is about the kind of country Britain is, and the kind of country we want it to be. Speaking out against a racist policy is not a strategic act, it is a political and ethical one. And it is the right thing for Starmer to do, regardless of the potential costs or benefits.
Walker, B. (2025) Crying racism only hurts Labour, The New Statesman. URL: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/polling/2025/09/crying-racism-only-hurts-labour [accessed 02/10/2025]
Francis, S. and Roberts, G. (2025) Reform plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain for migrants, BBC News. URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c930xypxpqpo [accessed 03/10/2025]
Mulhall, J. (2025) ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ Organised by Well-Known Far-Right Extremists, Hope Not Hate. URL: https://hopenothate.org.uk/2025/08/22/operation-raise-the-colours-organised-by-well-known-far-right-extremists/ [accessed 03/10/2025]
Mackintosh, T. (2025) Dozens of officers injured as up to 150,000 attend Tommy Robinson Rally, BBC News. URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwydezxl0xlo [accessed 03/10/2025]
Vinter, R. (2024) ‘They thought they were going to die’: the asylum seekers who survived rioters trying to burn down their accommodation, The Guardian. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/dec/29/they-thought-they-were-going-to-die-the-asylum-seekers-who-survived-rioters-trying-to-burn-down-their-accommodation [accessed 03/10/2025]
Malik, N. (2025) Why this moment of rightwing racism feels so different – and how we can resist it, The Guardian. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/sep/10/rightwing-racism-whitelash-riots-uk-gary-younge
Swatton, P. (2025) Public Opinion and the Survey Response, Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy. URL: https://renewal.org.uk/blog/public-opinion-and-the-survey-response/
Smith, M. (2025) What do Britons really think about scrapping indefinite leave to remain?, YouGov. URL: https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53070-what-do-britons-really-think-about-scrapping-indefinite-leave-to-remain [accessed 03/10/2025]
Smith, M. (2025) Do Britons think Reform UK are racist?, YouGov. URL: https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53096-do-britons-think-reform-uk-are-racist [accessed 03/10/2025]