On Thursday, the Government set out a plan to restore order to the “broken” immigration system as new data shows net migration hit a high of nearly one million last year.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper released a statement pledging to bring down the “historically high levels of net migration”. Blaming the previous Conservative Government over their lack of border control, Ms Cooper said: “In the space of 4 years, net migration rose by almost 5 times to a record high – that shows the serious damage that was done to the immigration system, the lack of proper controls in place, and the over-reliance on a big increase in overseas recruitment.”

In 2023, net migration reached a staggering 906,000, according to new reports.

Despite Labour’s new stern approach to tackling the ongoing issue, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had, on several occasions before, seemingly taken a softer approach to migration. Tory critics have criticised the Labour leader for the comments he made before assuming his current role.

September 2015

After a career in the legal sector, Sir Keir Starmer was elected as the MP for Holborn and St Pancras. Just a few months after, the now prime minister posted a government petition on the social media platform X entitled: “Accept more asylum seekers and increase support for refugee migrants in the UK,” pushing for public support as “we need urgent action to take refugees and review ineffective asylum rules.”

Running for six months, the petition reached 450,287 signatures which led to a Parliament debate in the same year.

The petition said: “The UK is not offering proportional asylum in comparison with European counterparts. We can’t allow refugees who have risked their lives to escape horrendous conflict and violence to be left living in dire, unsafe and inhumane conditions in Europe. We must help.”

April 2017

In 2017, the then-shadow Brexit Secretary said during a speech that migration rules had to change and that the EU single market should be kept “on the table” when revealing Labour’s strategy for Britain leaving the European Union.

Sir Keir Starmer said: “We recognise that immigration rules will have to change as we exit the EU, but we do not believe that immigration should be the overarching priority.”

January 2020

Following Labour’s defeat in the 2019 election, the former party leader Jeremy Corbyn announced he was stepping down. A questionnaire was then sent to all new prospective Labour leaders, including Sir Keir Starmer, by Labour for Free Movement. This asked for the candidates to outline their stance on immigration.

Promptly after, Starmer issued his reply, making him the first to respond. He said: “I will always defend migrants’ rights and make the positive case for immigration… I believe that should be protected as we leave the EU, and I am very concerned at the impact that [Boris] Johnson’s plans to end free movement will inevitably have on our economy, migrants’ rights and the freedom for people to work and live in the EU 27.”

September 2020

Sir Keir Starmer was elected the Labour Party leader in April 2020. Speaking to Time Radio later that year, the now prime minister said that “family members [from other countries] should be able to live together” in Britain, and that the nation “couldn’t function” without the flow of people seeking work here.

November, 2022

Most recently, in 2022, before Labour were the governing party, Sir Keir Starmer set out his party’s strategy for migration in a speech at the Confederation of British Industry conference.

He said that a Labour government was “not going to hold business back” if employers needed “talent from abroad”.