Newslinks for Monday 29th September 2025

Worried about immigration? Starmer says you’re racist

“Keir Starmer was on Sunday accused of insulting millions of voters worried about Britain’s borders – as he branded Reform’s immigration plans ‘racist’. Amid growing Labour panic at Reform’s surge in the polls, the Prime Minister ramped up his rhetoric against Nigel Farage’s plan to tear up residency rules, saying it ‘needs to be called out for what it is’. Mr Farage said the claim was an ‘insult’ to millions who want the Government to finally get a grip on immigration. He told the Daily Mail: ‘The Prime Minister has insulted those who believe mass migration should come to an end. Starmer thinks anybody here on a time-limited visa is entitled to stay in Britain for ever. Labour do not believe in border controls – and think anyone who does is racist.’ Highlighting a series of polls suggesting his party is on course to win the next election, Mr Farage said: ‘Keir Starmer has spent his entire weekend attacking Reform. This is the reason why.’ Ministers were taken aback by the PM’s dramatic decision to play the race card. While senior figures backed him in public, some were privately concerned the move could backfire. One Labour source said: ‘I know he’s talking about Farage and this horrible, divisive policy. But there is a danger that people with legitimate concerns hear it and just think he is calling them racist. I’m not sure that is really the best way to win people back from Reform.’ And despite the PM’s angry attack, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will today trumpet plans to crack down on the system for granting migrants ‘indefinite leave to remain’.  It came as:

• Sir Keir admitted the Left had ‘got it wrong’ on immigration for years;
•  Andy Burnham renewed his attack on the PM’s leadership, accusing him of presiding over a ‘climate of fear’ in the party that was stifling ‘open debate’;
• The PM refused to rule out raising VAT in the Budget; 
•  Exclusive polling for the Daily Mail revealed voters see Labour as the least patriotic party, despite Sir Keir’s pledge to lead a ‘patriotic renewal’ of Britain;
•  Rachel Reeves is preparing to warn youngsters they will have to take a state-sponsored job after 18 months on the dole, or lose benefits;
• The PM told Labour critics of his leadership to stop ‘navel-gazing’ and asked rivals to ‘give me space’ to get a grip on the Government;
• A poll predicted Reform would win an election today with a majority of 94 seats.

Sir Keir’s intervention came after Reform published plans last week designed to prevent migrants claiming benefits in this country.” – Daily Mail

• Nigel Farage blasts Keir Starmer for claiming Reform UK’s migration plans are racist – Daily Express
• Publish Starmer aide probe in full, Tories tell watchdog – as pressure mounts over Morgan McSweeney and think-tank donations – Daily Mail

Comment:

• Starmer’s constant reshuffling begs one question: does he have any friends left? – Kitty Donaldson, The i
• Labour governments all end in the same mess – Matthew Parris, The Times
• This Labour conference will likely be Starmer’s last as leader – Tom Harris, Daily Telegraph
• Now even Labour MPs fear the grotesque McSweeney cash cover-up could be the death of the party – Dan Hodges, Daily Mail
• Starmer’s fatal flaw? He misunderstands why voters are against him – Kamal Ahmed, Daily Telegraph
• Keir Starmer’s conference hell as Reform UK continue to trounce Labour – Jonathan Saxty, Daily Express

> Today: Kevin Hollinrake: We know which side we are on. We know who and what we fight for. You’ll see that next week

> Yesterday: The Tory Party’s vanishing act

Starmer: Reform UK’s policy on abolishing indefinite leave to remain for migrants is “racist” and “immoral”

Immigrants face ‘good citizen’ test to stay in UK

“Migrants will be forced to leave the UK unless they can show they are good citizens under Labour’s plans to toughen immigration rules to combat the threat of Reform. Foreign citizens will have to volunteer in their community, have a “spotless” criminal record, speak English to a high standard and be a net contributor to the economy to qualify for permanent settlement. Shabana Mahmood will use her first speech at Labour conference as home secretary to announce plans to make it harder for migrants to qualify for indefinite leave to remain, which allows ­foreigners to live, work and study in the UK permanently. It marks the latest hardening of Labour’s immigration policy in an attempt to stymie the popularity of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Mahmood will warn that if Labour does not toughen its policy there is a risk “working people will turn away from us — the party that for over a hundred years has been their party — and seek solace in the false promises of Farage”. Farage announced last week that he would abolish indefinite leave to remain altogether, a proposal that Sir Keir Starmer labelled as racist. Reform’s plans would also apply to those with settled status in the UK, which means that hundreds of thousands of people could face deportation. Labour’s plans would force migrants to leave the UK if they did not ­contribute to society. However, they would not apply to foreign citizens who already have settled status. Stepping up his attack on Farage at the start of the Labour Party conference, the prime minister told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “What was said last week about deporting migrants who are lawfully here, who have been here for years, working in our hospitals and our schools, running businesses, our neighbours, and Reform say they want to deport them. That would tear our country apart.” At present migrants can apply for indefinite leave to remain after five years and it is often granted automatically when basic conditions are met. Under Labour’s plans, this would be lifted to a “baseline” of ten years. Settlement would have to be earned through qualifying criteria that will determine whether they are contributing to the economy and society. Those who do not contribute sufficiently will have to wait longer than ten years while others will not qualify at all, Labour said. The conditions that migrants will have to meet to gain indefinite leave to remain include being in work, making national insurance contributions, not claiming benefits, learning English to a high standard, having a clean criminal record and “giving back to your local community” through volunteering.” – The Times

• Migrants will have to contribute or leave UK – Daily Telegraph
• Foreign nationals must have a ‘spotless’ criminal record to win the right to stay in Britain permanently, says Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood – Daily Mail

Comment:

• Starmer can bad mouth Farage all he wants. It won’t help him one jot unless he stops the boats – Stephen Glover, Daily Mail
• Starmer looks like the captain of the Marie Celeste and unless he changes course, fast, Labour are dead – Maurice Glasman, The Sun

> Yesterday: “Because of the decisions I made as Home Secretary, net migration halved” – Cleverly

Reeves refuses to rule out VAT rise

“Rachel Reeves fueled fears over a VAT raid today as she hinted the Budget could see tax rises and spending cuts. The Chancellor said she had made a ‘solemn promise’ to stabilise the finances as she dodged on how she plans to fill an estimated £30billion gap in the government’s books. Speculation has been mounting that Ms Reeves could have to break Labour’s election manifesto, which pledged no increases to income tax, employee national insurance or VAT. Touring broadcast studios at party conference in Liverpool this morning ahead of her keynote speech, Ms Reeves repeated the formulation that she ‘stands by those commitments’ without giving specific guarantees. Some believe the government could expand VAT to areas such as taxi fares, rather than increasing the main rate. ‘There are global headwinds at the moment, we can see that the world has changed hugely since the last election,’ she told Sky News. ‘But those manifesto commitments we made in the manifesto 15 months ago, those manifesto commitments stand.’ Pressed on whether a VAT rise would count as a tax rise on working people, Ms Reeves said: ‘That (VAT) was part of our manifesto pledges. Because if we are talking about living standards the prices in the shops are obviously crucial to people’s living standards.’ The Chancellor insisted she had not yet received forecasts from the Treasury’s OBR watchdog. Asked if taxes would have to bear the burden of filling any black hole in the finances, Ms Reeves said she would bring forward ‘a combination of changes, if needed, to tax and spending’. Keir Starmer sparked concern about VAT yesterday after seeming to choose his words carefully during a BBC interview. He insisted the manifesto ‘stands’ rather than giving any specific assurances. Ms Reeves also signalled she wants the OBR to do one set of forecasts a year instead of two – something the watchdog has suggested it will resist. She told Times Radio: ‘The International Monetary Fund (IMF) have said that we should move to just one major fiscal event a year, and I agree with their recommendations, and to be able to do that, we do need to change the way that the OBR do their forecasting. Two full forecasts a year make it harder to have that one fiscal event. There are different ways you could do it, you could do a shorter term forecast, you could do a forecast that just looks at the changes in the economy over that period of time.’ She added: ‘We’ve already moved to having just one budget a year, but we’re trying through these changes to facilitate that.’” – Daily Mail

• How much could Rachel Reeves’s stealth tax raid cost you? – Daily Telegraph
• Keir Starmer leaves room to break Labour manifesto and raise VAT – The Times
• Reeves to tell business: wake up to danger that Reform UK poses – Financial Times
• Young people could be stripped of benefits if they turn down job after 18 months – Daily Telegraph
• Chancellor brings in new rules so ships and steel are British-made – The Sun

Comment:

• More broken promises from a Chancellor out of ideas – Mel Stride, Daily Telegraph
• Britain cannot afford a youth mobility scheme – Suella Braverman, Daily Telegraph
• Chancellor in bond market trap – Alex Brummer, Daily Mail
• Labour is failing both workers and the workless – Iain Duncan Smith, Daily Telegraph
• Fantasy economics mean Nigel Farage is heir to Liz Truss – Liam Byrne, The Times

Burnham accuses Starmer of allowing ‘climate of fear’ in Labour

“Andy Burnham renewed his threat to Sir Keir Starmer as he launched a fresh wave of attacks against the Labour leadership, accusing it of presiding over a “climate of fear” just hours after the Prime Minister pleaded for unity in the party. In a further ratcheting up of his threats to Starmer, the Greater Manchester Mayor once again questioned the direction of the party as he warned of the looming threat posed by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK at the Welsh and local elections next year. It comes after The i Paper revealed in the last week that Burnham and his inner circle have identified the set of national elections in Scotland and Wales, as well as the local council polls, as the point when “Keir will be at his weakest and it will be time to go for it [the leadership]”. Burnham sparked a bitter backlash from Labour MPs last week after he gave a string of interviews criticising the decisions made by Starmer’s government, and admitted he was privately being urged by backbenchers to launch a leadership challenge. But a defiant Burnham said he would not back down when it came to pushing for a “debate” on the party’s trajectory, insisting that he was doing it in support of the Government. “One of the things I think we do need to have a debate about is – how do we have a policy agenda that connects more, that tells a story more when people are on those doorsteps,” he told a fringe event, ostensibly on the issue of proportional representation at the party’s conference in Liverpool. And he added: “One thing I am worried about, and we do need a debate at this conference, and my view is: how can you have an open debate about all of those things if there’s too much of a climate of fear within our party and the way the party is being run?” He went on to attack the decision to strip the whip from Labour MPs for voting against the Government on benefits reform, and he threw his weight behind Lucy Powell’s deputy leadership campaign and praised her decision to oppose the two-child benefit cap.” – The i

• Andy Burnham says ‘climate of fear’ in Labour is shutting down debate – The Guardian
• Don’t underestimate peril for Labour, says Burnham – BBC News
• Rosie Duffield: I would consider rejoining Labour under Burnham – Daily Telegraph

News in brief:

• The world believes in Britain, the government must too – Chris Hayward, CityAM
• Has Starmer given up on winning back Reform voters? – Peter Franklin, Unherd
• How Net Zero is weakening the West – Maurice Cousins, The Critic
• Starmer’s ‘racist’ Reform remark is his ‘deplorables’ moment – Druin Burch, The Spectator