Diane Abbott wasted no time at Saturday’s anti-austerity rally. She tore into Keir Starmer’s “island of strangers” line, calling it “fundamentally racist” and lifted straight from Reform UK’s playbook. Abbott reminded the crowd that migrants have built this country—and Starmer’s rhetoric flies in the face of that history.
🌎 ‘Island of strangers’? Think again
Last month, Starmer warned that without strict borders “we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.” Abbott shook her head. “I thought that was a fundamentally racist thing to say,” she declared. “My parents came here in the ’50s. They weren’t strangers—they helped build this land.”
🔄 Copying the opposition
Abbott didn’t mince words. She accused Starmer of trying to beat Reform by echoing its soundbites. “You don’t defeat them by copying them,” she told cheering supporters. And she trashed his claim that migration has done “incalculable damage to this green and pleasant land” as plain “nonsense.”
✊ Immigrants made Britain
With passion, Abbott reminded everyone: “Immigrants built this land, built this society!” She rallied trade unionists to keep fighting austerity, welfare cuts and the racism festering on the right—and, she suggested, creeping into Labour.
🤝 Party response
Downing Street stands by Starmer’s words, insisting he “rejects previous speeches” by Enoch Powell. A PM spokesperson stressed that while migrants contribute massively, recent waves have strained public services. But Abbott says that’s no excuse to paint newcomers as villains.
🎯 Takeaway
Abbott finished with a rallying cry: “We must fight the rich, the powerful and the racists—inside our party and out. Together, we will win.”
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