When Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain stepped before a lectern at 10 Downing Street last month, he made clear how misguided he thought the country’s immigration policies had been. He described its recent approach as a “one-nation experiment in open borders” that Britons never voted for. In its place, he announced a slew of measures to toughen border controls, raise skill requirements for immigrants and effectively end mass migration.
All this is coming from Britain’s center-left Labour Party, which long favored openness toward migrants. That reflected Labour’s modern base of urban progressive voters. Higher immigration was economically advantageous for them, in particular by holding down prices, and it was consistent with their humanitarian worldview.
The trouble is, these views tend to be at odds with the views of many working-class voters. Those less affluent voters have questioned the impact of mass migration for years, worried about its impact on housing, public services, wages and communities. The response of urban progressives in Britain, as in other parts of Europe and the United States, has often been to denounce working-class voters as narrow-minded or racist. It should hardly be surprising that voters responded by switching their political allegiances. Immigration, more than any other issue, symbolizes the wedge between center-left parties and their traditional class base.
