If Labour politicians in the UK can cut immigration, Democrats can support immigration cuts here in the US

“We risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.” So said British Prime Minister Keir Starmer last month, announcing measures to tighten and reduce immigration into the United Kingdom. Starmer’s Labour Party has long worked to increase immigration. But party leaders have come to realize that excessive immigration undermines liberal political goals, by weakening social solidarity and support for an expansive economic safety net.

Like the United States, Canada and other developed nations, the UK is struggling with housing affordability. Housing starts have not kept pace with immigration-driven population growth, driving up rents and pricing younger couples out of the housing market. Britain’s National Health Service has come under increasing criticism for long waiting times and service cutbacks. As annual immigration into the UK has ballooned, the numbers of doctors and nurses, hospitals and clinics, have not kept pace.

The effects of shortages in housing, health care and other essential services have been born primarily by the UK’s poorer citizens. So has downward pressure on workers’ wages. This has led working-class Britons to abandon the Labour Party, unhappy with what Mr. Starmer himself calls a “one-nation experiment in open borders.” His about-face on immigration is designed to reverse this declining support.

“Make no mistake, this plan means migration will fall, that’s a promise,” Mr. Starmer said. He added that pressure on housing prices and health care availability could lead his party to reduce immigration even further.

Numbers Matter

Watching from across the pond, there are lessons Americans can take from these recent events. First, if liberal politicians in the UK (and other developed nations, like Denmark) can cut immigration to reduce housing pressures and benefit their own citizens, so can Democrats in the United States.

Second, immigration control should not be a partisan issue. Citizens on the left of the political spectrum have good reasons to support immigration limits, just like citizens in the center and on the right. That’s because third …

Numbers matter. Immigration in moderation is a good thing. But excessive immigration, like the levels seen recently in the UK and the US, is not — particularly if you are concerned about the wellbeing of poorer citizens.

There’s a reason we named this organization NumbersUSA when we founded it thirty years ago! And the USA part is important, too. Because fourth …

Nations matter

Americans belong to a national community with shared goals and values. We owe it to our fellow citizens to make public policy with their wellbeing in mind. That’s why Claire Ainsley, a former advisor to PM Starmer, titled a recent opinion piece on immigration “A Progressive Future Depends on National Identity.”

“It is a mistake to see Labour’s new policy as mere tactics,” Ainsley writes in the New York Times. “Getting serious about immigration can be part of a coherent progressive vision, not just a bargain with working-class voters to stave off the right. Progress toward a more equal and fair society depends on stability and community,” which depend on enforcing national borders. In a borderless world, citizenship is devalued and common workers are at the mercy of the wealthy and large corporations.

“As the liberal order comes under threat from authoritarians on the right and on the left,” Ainsley argues, “a new progressive politics needs to emerge, anchoring people in identities that make them feel safer and more in solidarity with one another. Renewing the concept of the modern nation can help achieve that goal. The starting point for a new progressive future can be the idea of a community that provides security and opportunity, and to which we owe as much as we expect from it.”

She concludes: “Immigration needs to move from an issue that progressives avoid to one that they seek to own. If handled well, it can be a catalyst for putting national community and citizenship at the center of a new progressive politics. There is an even bigger prize to win than beating back the populist right. It is the chance to emerge from the failures of modern globalism and forge strong, self-confident and socially cohesive nations.”

More and more political leaders in the developed world are willing to set reasonable limits to immigration. Left-of-center parties that embrace immigration moderation are winning. Ambitious Democrats, take notice!