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Did Keir Starmer Just Say He Will ‘Take Back Control’?

Nigel Farage doesn't need to win the next election to be in power, says Prof James Alexander. Starmer is already announcing his immigration policies. But will the Labour PM really follow through and 'Take Back Control'?

5 min read

Excitingly bearing out the hypothesis that politicians have only two things they can do effectively – 1) wage war (unsubtle politics) and 2) carry out the policies of their political opponents (subtle politics) – is Keir Starmer. In March of this year I posited a law of politics that I called the Law of Inverse Policy:

One is less likely to be opposed if one proposes a policy that appears to go against the stated objectives of one’s own party.

Hence:

If a governing party wants a successful policy it should select one from the list of stated policies of the opposition party.

And here is Starmer to demonstrate the truth of this law. For what the Conservatives were never able to do, Labour will now do.

Yes, Starmer obviously seeks a decisive policy. And, wisely, for the moment, he is leaving war to one side, on the grounds that there is enough war in the world. Instead, he is turning to the civil war raging within the United Kingdom. And he is revealing himself to be rather more subtle a politician than those of us who scoffed at the lawyer were willing to recognise. For what we have going on at the moment is a modern reimagining of aspects of all of the following: the Saxon Shore, the Viking Invasions, the Harrying of the North, the Peasants’ Revolt, the Pilgrimage of Grace – as our island is invaded, the rulers are blamed, and the people are revolting. I say ‘the people’ but

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29 Comments
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coviture2020
coviture2020
1 year ago

Too late two tier keith

Gezza England
Gezza England
1 year ago

‘We risk becoming an island of strangers’

Perhaps Never Here Kier should get out more then he would find it has already happened. Dr North noted that there was a demonstration by Pakistanis about cross border violence from India in the early 70s – see, nothing new there – but the demonstrators wore suits and ties and dressed like they were British. Fast forward and they are to be seen in their national fancy dress all around their ghettos such as Bradford. Integration in reverse with later generations. What immigration enthusiast Two Tier made no mention of was ‘remigration’ but then GB News brought up all the clips of him praising immigration.

JXB
JXB
1 year ago

Island of strangers. Rivers of blood.

Take Back Control. Build Back Better. Safe And Effective.

Epithets for sale.

Pinching the Opposition’s policies reinforces its probity and competence and why you should vote for them. I don’t see the subtlety in Starmer furthering the interests of Reform UK. Unavoidable maybe, subtle, no. Dumb people do dumb things – he’s dumb.

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  JXB

It’s obvious – not subtle at all. Not sure I would call it dumb- it might fool enough people. The Fake Conservatives managed it for 14 years.

Cotfordtags
Cotfordtags
1 year ago

Two observations. One, he is behaving exactly like a lawyer, who we still despise. Lawyers, professionally, believe in nothing other than the current prepared brief from the person paying the piper. Hence his ability to read a speech and make it convincing, even if it is totally the opposite of what he said yesterday. Lawyers do this every day in courts up and down the country. The other is why is it right for indigenous peoples around the world to fight for their rights and defend their histories and beliefs and yet when those who trace their ancestry back a thousand years and more in this country, as over 95% of the population did as recently as the start of WW2, we are branded as racists, little Englanders, isolationist and many other descriptions.

RTSC
RTSC
1 year ago

Perhaps Two-Tier is practising for his intended post-Premiership career: stand up comedian?

Jeff Chambers
Jeff Chambers
1 year ago

The fundamental policy of the Anti-White Party (the Labour Party as was) is to replace the native people of our islands with people who’ll vote for the Anti-White Party. 2TK is not proposing to stop mad mass unlimited immigration but to temporarily reduce it in order to deceive our people about his real intentions.

DiscoveredJoys
DiscoveredJoys
1 year ago

The key test is whether or not there are immediate publications of new ministerial action plans, guidance to NGOs, and a schedule for putting the necessary changes in law before parliament. My expectation is that there will be a lot of factional Labour resistance that will dilute and negate the ‘fine’ words. The labour factions are far more concerned with political jockeying than delivering changes that the electorate approve of.

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fob you off. Then they do it all over again.

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  DiscoveredJoys

Labour still think they have the muslim vote. They haven’t. The Turd Worlders have realised that the political gravy train is overflowing and have decided to cut out the middle man, Labour, and stuff themselves directly. And this is one of the reasons why I don’t believe another GE is likely and particularly with Reform now calling the shots.

Dinger64
Dinger64
1 year ago

He’s a liar! Always was and always will be,it’s ingrained
As Farage said ” he’s trying to play catch up”
Look at what he said before the election and compare that to what he’s actually done! Never trust this inhuman empty vessel

Old Arellian
Old Arellian
1 year ago
Reply to  Dinger64

Also an empty vessel. I think the author of this piece is being way too kind when they write “he is revealing himself to be rather more subtle a politician than those of us who scoffed at the lawyer were willing to recognise.” Poppycock! The Starmerbot is a puppet. What comes out of his mouth is scripted, which is, I imagine, why he flounders when asked direct questions, goes puce, stutters and gets all peeved. The title of a review into the book “Get In:The Inside Story of Labour under Starmer” read: “How a sinister cabal put a soulless patsy in charge of Britain” The authors state that ” Lord Alli reportedly said to a junior official “Four people are in charge – Morgan, Sue, Pat and me”
Authors are Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund.

Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago

Obviously just a reaction to Reform, who are basically doing an ‘AfD’ and becoming increasingly popular with the decent, patriotic, right-thinking members of the public, and therefore more of a threat, so Starmer’s bad case of oral flatulence predictably ensues. And all this talk of migrants being able to speak English ( after Rupert Lowe revealed just how much is being spent on translation services in the NHS and elsewhere* ) is a bit rich when we have English people being warned by police, if not arrested and even wrongly imprisoned, for actually speaking English, all because it’s not the ‘approved’ form of English the government permits. It’s ‘free speech’, but only if it’s not the ‘anti-establishment’ kind;

”Britons are being asked again this week to forget years of betrayal by establishment parties who say one thing and do the opposite, and to accept that border control really is about to be taken seriously.
In a desperate attempt to stem the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which gave the main parties a proper beating at recent local elections, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer is trying to sound tough on migration. Whether his actions will match this talk is another (totally unimaginable) matter.… Read more »

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, unless the UK suspends or withdraws from the ECHR it will be impossible to get the numbers down in any real way.

You cannot take back control of your borders, if control lies elsewhere. Control lies in the hands of international documents adjudicated by judges in the UK Supreme Court or at some international court.

No one knows this better than international lawyers such as the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer KC and his Attorney General Lord Hermer KC who has said, “if they (the Tories) are criticising the government because it wants to comply with international law, if they want to pick a fight with the government because it says international law is important and that we want to uphold international law, then that’s a fight I’d quite look forward to.”

You can respect international law or you can take back control. You can’t do both.”

Laura Perrins.

https://lauraperrins.substack.com/p/starmers-lack-of-control?utm_medium=web

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago

Box of Smarties for everyone still here in 2030 if there is a significant reduction in immigration, deportations of alien criminals etc.

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

Your optimism is getting the better of you tof. 😀

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

My Smarties are safe I reckon!

Claphamanian
Claphamanian
1 year ago

Sir Keir’s whole sermon, delivered from the state’s pulpit, in the same unctuous tone in which he read the Gospel in Westminster Abbey last week, is a pitiful piece of triangulation.

‘the forces that threaten to tear the country apart..‘ = the ‘far-Right’. Not the diversity that the PM ‘celebrates’.

‘Migration is part of Britain’s national story…you cannot pull up the drawbridge... = business as usual. Even though migration has been a minor part of Britain’s story for the last 1500 years.

‘We will finally honour what take back control meant.’ Well, what did it mean? It evidently wasn’t synonymous with reducing the numbers. Taking back control is control of the narrative. The mollification of the electorate, soothed like restless children with smooth assurances that it will all be all right. The one thing any government has to do is to look like they are in control, even if they aren’t.

‘The experiment is over...’ = An admission that it was an experiment. Experiments are concluded when the results have been attained. By their own accounts, read out in the Commons by Katie Lam, the convicted perpetrators certainly rubbed the noses of the female victims of the ‘grooming’ gangs in… Read more »

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Claphamanian

Terrific post.👍

Jeff Chambers
Jeff Chambers
1 year ago
Reply to  Claphamanian

“Labour will ensure no matter whatever your background, you can thrive”

Ahhh, so that explains the importation of tens of thousands of criminals, and why we have over a thousand Albanians in our prisons.

Hester
Hester
1 year ago

Action not words needed

Old Arellian
Old Arellian
1 year ago
Reply to  Hester

As a commentator on TV said “show don’t tell”

JeremyP99
JeremyP99
1 year ago
Monro
Monro
1 year ago

Take back control…..?

Crikey….he’ll have to shut down at least 603 organisations employing hundreds of thousands of staff.

The Taxpayer’s Alliance lists 957 semi-autonomous public bodies under the UK Government, which they estimate employ 700,000 staff.

‘These numbers exclude the three devolved administrations, local authorities, schools, hospitals, police and fire services etc, and so are only a subset of the estimated 10,000 public bodies that exist in the UK. Scottish and Welsh government departments’

https://www.icaew.com/insights/viewpoints-on-the-news/2025/mar-2025/chart-of-the-week-quangos

No wonder the country is fecked…..

Hardliner
1 year ago

If they can ‘take back control’ why did successive governments relinquish it in the first instance? Has Starmer just set himself a huge trap?

huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Hardliner

While we remain locked into the ECHR absolutely nothing will change, well a few law types will rip-off the taxpayers but that’s all..

https://lauraperrins.substack.com/p/starmers-lack-of-control?utm_medium=web

A first rate article from Laura Perrins stating why nothing will change.

Art Simtotic
Art Simtotic
1 year ago

Sir Two Tier taking back control not worth the bag the political wind is blown out of. 

ComradeSvelte
ComradeSvelte
1 year ago

Oh how we laughed, TBC as likely as STG….

Grahamb
Grahamb
1 year ago

The thing with Starmer is he flips more than most and will change back soon enough. I am assuming he will never deliver on a promise and rely on his PR folks to align occasional actual results loosely with policy.

Mikael
Mikael
1 year ago
Reply to  Grahamb

He flops after he flips.

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