"We risk becoming an island of strangers," declared British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on May 12, as he presented his White Paper proposing measures to "take back control of our borders." Surely, we have always been strangers, especially those of us who grew up in the global metropolis of London, a city of hundreds of different languages. Except, somehow, and precisely because of this diversity, this city has become one of the largest and most prosperous urban environments in the world since the 18th century.
Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, has clearly adopted the rhetoric of the anti-immigration right, which has historically always opposed immigration to the country – whether Russian Jews at the end of the 19th century, refugees fleeing Nazism in the 1930s, immigrants from the British colonies and the Commonwealth after World War II, Ugandans of Indian origin in the 1970s, citizens from European Union countries at the beginning of the 21st century or the people "illegally" crossing the Channel today. The list is endless. So is that of the anti-migrant parties. The most recent of these, Reform UK, stands out as the first to enter the British Parliament.
Yet while Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, descended from German immigrants settling in 19th century London and married to a German immigrant, may rail against newcomers, just as Starmer does, they both admit that immigration is inevitable and want to control it – an idea underpinning the "Restoring control over the immigration system" white paper. The paper makes a link between pressure on resources (housing, public services) and immigration, whereas in reality, migrants have played a major role in developing public services and expanding the British economy.
Although the Irish of the 19th century arrived with nothing and many ultimately left for the United States, hundreds of thousands helped build Victorian Britain as navvies.
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