From Birmingham 20th April 1968 to London 12th May 2025. Political Speeches on ‘strangers’
Keir Starmer’s speech on migration on 12th May 2025 has been widely condemned for its reference to strangers an echo of Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech on 20th April 1968.
The relevant passages are below with a link to Starmer’s speech. I have not linked to the Powell speech, but it can be Googled. Powell was sacked a Tory Shadow Minister by Tory leader Ted Heath for making it.
Whether Starmer was aware of the reference can be debated but it seems very likely that whoever inserted it in the speech was well aware and that aside from Powell it’s a sentiment previously associated with Farage.
The campaign to underline that refugees and migrants are welcome here, and indeed essential to our public services in a tolerant country at ease with itself needs to be pursued with even more vigour
For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country.
Enoch Powell 20th April 1968, Conservative Association Meeting, Birmingham
we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.
Keir Starmer, 12th May 2025 London
PM remarks at Immigration White Paper press conference: 12 May 2025 – GOV.UK
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