Why playing the far-right’s game on immigration is self-destructive for non-far-right parties

DMZ News (Die Mittlländische Zeitung) recently described the political experience of the last 10 years on the politics of xenophobia:

The mistake of wanting to beat right-wing populism with its own weapons will probably never be acknowledged. Why should they, because the textbooks are all written and they show how it works? The more you use these weapons, the more they change you and in the end you don't recognize your opponent anymore because you've become the same.

This spiral cannot be stopped in a society that is so receptive to this primitive construction. The part of the story repeats itself. Only the resulting catastrophes are likely to be different. In the short term, we will see what the new patriarch of the so-called Western world [Trump] will create. In which the heads of government of Europe had to coordinate beforehand how to throw honey at him in the correct dose, so that he would even listen before you tell him something that he does not intend to deal with on his own. (1)

There is ample evidence from the politics of various European countries, including Austria, Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy, as well as in the US, that when left and center-left parties try to show they are just as hostile to foreigners as the far-right, it strengthens the far right. Because xenophobia is their most polarizing issue in recent years, and for the left and center parties to accept their framing rather than challenging it directly and calling out the inevitably lies used to justify it winds up enhancing the credibility of the far right.

Britain’s Keir Starmer is busily squandering his Labour Party majority in Parliament by playing that same fool’s game:

"We risk becoming an island of strangers," declared British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on May 12, as he presented his White Paper proposing measures to "take back control of our borders." …

Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, has clearly adopted the rhetoric of the anti-immigration right, which has historically always opposed immigration to the country – whether Russian Jews at the end of the 19th century, refugees fleeing Nazism in the 1930s, immigrants from the British colonies and the Commonwealth after World War II, Ugandans of Indian origin in the 1970s, citizens from European Union countries at the beginning of the 21st century or the people "illegally" crossing the Channel today. The list is endless. So is that of the anti-migrant parties. The most recent of these, Reform UK, stands out as the first to enter the British Parliament. [my emphasis] (2)

Here is a clip of journalists pressing Starmer on the issue back in May: (3)



Owen Jones reams Starmer over this demagoguery on this issue in this commentary from May and stresses how counter-productive and wrong that is for left and left-center parties: (4)

 

Notes:

(1) Klöckner, Julia & Specht, Kirk (2025): Wenn Politik die Waffen des Rechtspopulismus nutzt: Lektionen aus den USA und Europas gefährliche Spiralbewegung. DMZ News 08/23/2025. <https://www.dmz-news.eu/2025/08/23/wenn-politik-die-waffen-des-rechtspopulismus-nutzt-lektionen-aus-den-usa-und-europas-gef%C3%A4hrliche-spiralbewegung/> (Accessed: 2025-23-08-2025). My translation to English.

(2) Panayi, Panikos (2025): 'Starmer has clearly adopted the rhetoric of the anti-immigration right'. Le Monde 06/04/2025. <https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2025/06/04/starmer-has-clearly-adopted-the-rhetoric-of-the-anti-immigration-right_6742012_23.html#> (Accessed: 2025-23-08).

(3) Journalists lay into Keir Starmer for right-wing pivot on immigration. PoliticsJOE YouTube channel 05/12/2025. <https://youtu.be/EnKQzqAlfTY?si=WRob1GZI9JAj5jVY> (Accessed: 2025-23-08).

(4) Keir Starmer Goes Full ENOCH POWELL - Is He Britain's Most Dishonest Politician Ever? Owen Joes YouTube channel 05/12/2025. <https://youtu.be/oxiJibgs26Y?si=jmgenPxuJp0CH9HJ> (Accessed: 2025-23-08).