Keir Starmer has admitted he ‘deeply regrets’ his warning that uncontrolled immigration risks turning Britain into an ‘island of strangers’.
The PM made the jibe in a speech last month, seen as marking a tough new approach to combat the political threat posed by Reform.
But Sir Keir said he realised the language ‘wasn’t right’ after critics claimed it had echoes of Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech.
He pointed to the impact of an alleged arson attack on a property owned by his family, saying he and wife Lady Victoria had been ‘really shaken up’.
The premier gave the speech on May 12, hours after the blaze.
In it, he warned Britain risked becoming ‘an island of strangers’ without tougher immigration controls – rhetoric that sparked an immediate backlash and was denounced by critics, including within Labour ranks, as divisive.
At the time, Downing Street backed the remarks and said Sir Keir ‘completely rejects’ suggestions he had echoed Powell’s infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech – which was blamed for inflaming racial tensions in the 1960s.
Polling also suggested that most Brits did not have a problem with his use of the phrase.
But in an interview for the Observer, Sir Keir said: ‘I wouldn’t have used those words if I had known they were, or even would be interpreted as an echo of Powell.
‘I had no idea – and my speechwriters didn’t know either. But that particular phrase – no – it wasn’t right. I’ll give you the honest truth: I deeply regret using it.’
He added: ‘It’s fair to say I wasn’t in the best state to make a big speech… I was really, really worried. I almost said: ‘I won’t do the bloody press conference.’
‘Vic was really shaken up as, in truth, was I. It was just a case of reading the words out and getting through it somehow… so I could get back to them.’
Critics drew parallels between the phrase and a passage from Powell’s 1968 speech in which he claimed white Britons were at risk of becoming ‘strangers in their own country’.
The Prime Minister stressed he was not seeking to use the alleged arson attack as an excuse and does not blame his advisers, saying he should have read through the speech properly and ‘held it up to the light a bit more’.
He also backed down on language in his foreword to the policy document linked to the speech, which said record high numbers of migrants entering the UK under the last government had done ‘incalculable damage’.
Sir Keir insisted the issue needed addressing because the party ‘became too distant from working-class people on things like immigration’, but said ‘this wasn’t the way to do it in this current environment’.