Promotional image for the open meeting about Migrant Workers on Tuesday 3 June
Migrant Workers Speak Out
Hastings Stand Up To Racism (HSUTR), which has issued a strongly worded statement on Keir Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ speech, are holding a special open meeting at Central Hall on Tuesday 3 June.
The group’s Facebook page explains: ‘Keir Starmer has announced new racist measures to scapegoat migrant workers. The government’s immigration proposals reinforce the arguments of the racist far right. Migrant workers in health, care, education, and cleaning who work in Hastings will speak about the impact of these attacks on their lives. Come along to discuss the implications and what we can do to fight back.’
When: 7pm, Tuesday 3 June
Where: Central Hall, Bank Buildings, Station Road, TN34 1NG
Hastings Stand Up to Racism statement on Keir Starmer’s new anti-immigrant measures
Migrants are not strangers! They are our friends, our neighbours and our workmates.
Hastings Stand Up to Racism (HSUTR) condemns Keir Starmer for his attack on migrants and his endorsement of far-right lies about migration. His speech introducing his government’s new immigration white paper at Downing Street on Monday, 12 May 2025 was a full-on embrace of the racist myths that drive racist and far-right parties. It could easily have come out of the mouth of Nigel Farage or Suella Braverman.
Starmer claimed that immigration has done ‘incalculable’ damage to the UK and vowed to ‘finally take back control of our borders’. At one point Starmer channeled Enoch Powell’s notorious ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech when he argued that migration needed to be restricted to prevent the UK becoming an ‘island of strangers not a nation that walks forward together’.
The UK is not an island of strangers. Migrants built our society and continue to maintain our NHS and our public services. Starmer chose to focus on care workers, whose only ‘crime’ is to provide the care for 140,000 residents of care homes.
What has done ‘incalculable’ damage to the UK is 46 years of neo-liberal economics which has left the richest 1% of the UK holding the same amount of wealth as 80% of the population.
It was the common decency of people in Hastings and around the country who came together last August, when violent racists threatened to attack refugees and migrants, and to fire-bomb mosques. And it is common decency and a commitment to fighting racism that will defeat the threat of Reform UK – not pandering to their racist scapegoating.
HSUTR will continue to campaign against racism whether it comes from REFORM UK, what is left of the Tory Party or when it is pushed by the leader of the Labour Party.
Migrants and refugees are welcome, racists are not.
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