When Keir Starmer called Britain an “island of strangers”, he lost support among Labour voters and gained none elsewhere, according to new research shared exclusively with the New Statesman. The first of its kind to track sentiment before and after the 12 May 2025 speech, the report by the Public Opinion Analytics Lab identifies a significant electoral cost to the Prime Minister’s remarks: support for Labour fell among its erstwhile voters by 4 percentage points.
Using survey data from over 30,000 respondents from the British Election Study, which happened to take place in the month of the speech (2-22 May 2025), the team of political scientists from the University of Southampton, London School of Economics and University of Reading were able to compare voting intentions immediately before and after the controversial comments, which were criticised for echoing Enoch Powell.
While Labour succeeded in the public registering the speech and assuming it had moved to the right on immigration, this did not have a favourable impact. “People noticed, and saw Labour as more ‘right-wing’ on immigration after the speech and white paper, so in that sense it worked,” said Daniel Devine of the University of Southampton. “[But] whether we measure support for Labour as liking the party, intention to vote for it, or liking Starmer, there is no modelling scenario where we find the speech has any positive effect.”
The study shows no evidence that Labour was able to appeal to more anti-immigration supporters to make up for its loss of Labour voters. Instead, the speech made the issue of immigration 3 percentage points more salient, and even reduced support for all left-of-centre parties (Labour, the Greens and Lib Dems) by 1.5 percentage points. While statistically insignificant, there may even have been a small rise in support for Reform.
“We can say that it definitely didn’t have a negative impact on Reform support, and may have had a small positive effect,” said Devine. “But the real story is the negative effect on Labour. They lost votes without gaining any from the people they are aiming to attract or nullifying their perceived threat from Reform.”
This analysis chimes with another recent study by the polling analyst Steve Akehurst, also shared exclusively with the New Statesman at the time, which suggested the only result of Labour putting out deportation videos was to increase the salience of immigration (plus a slight bump in sympathy for Reform).
Starmer later suggested to the New Statesman that he regretted the “island of strangers” phrase. The net loss in support uncovered by this new research indicates it may be too late for regrets.
[See also: Nigel Farage, the free speech champion we deserve]
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