2 w. ago A Labour lost in the weeds can’t rebuild this country. Starmer must regain his nerve | John Harris

Labour has good ideas and years left to change Britain. Why is it acting as if its time is almost up? Just under a week on from Keir Starmer’s latest pronouncements about immigration, plenty of people on his own side are still gripped by a queasy sense of fury and disappointment, and it shows no signs of fading away. His aides and allies will now try to gladden left-liberal hearts by emphasising gains from Monday’s UK-EU summit, and the prime minister’s remodelling of Brexit. But the acrid cloud hanging over Starmer will surely remain, and with good reason.Whatever the surrounding context – and whether or not he was consciously echoing Enoch Powell – his suggestion that Britain risked becoming an “island of strangers” still sounded like a horribly calculated provocation. The insistence that the government was set on closing “a squalid chapter for our politics, our economy, and our country” was even more brazen. So was the suggestion after years of “a one-nation experiment in open bo...

Politics

3 w. ago PMQs live: Starmer faces Badenoch after No10 denies immigration speech echoes Enoch Powell

Prime minister facing backlash from members of his own party after immigration speech

Politics

3 w. ago UK politics live: Starmer to face Badenoch at PMQs after No10 denies immigration speech echoes Enoch Powell

PM has faced backlash for the language he used in the speech setting out plans to crack down on legal migration

Politics

3 w. ago PMQs: Nigel Farage to grill Keir Starmer as No10 forced to deny 'island of strangers' echoes of Enoch Powell

The Prime Minister has been hit with a backlash including from London MPs for his controversial language

Politics

3 w. ago Farage to grill Starmer at PMQs as No10 forced to deny 'island of strangers' echoes of Enoch Powell

The Prime Minister has been hit with a backlash including from London MPs for his controversial language

Politics

3 w. ago Starmer ‘completely rejects’ claims he echoed Enoch Powell in migration speech

The Prime Minister warned the UK risked becoming an ‘island of strangers’ if migration controls were not tightened.

Politics