Island of Loneliness

England really is a nation of strangers but not for the reasons Keir Starmer suggested this week, argues Adam Ramsay

We’ve become used to politicians blaming Britain’s economic problems on immigrants. The idea that “they’re coming over here, taking our jobs” has become a cliché, trotted out by every regime for 40 years as an excuse for the failure to reverse stagnant wages, rising living costs and austerity. What was new about Keir Starmer’s speech this week is that its most notable line – “we risk becoming an island of strangers” – didn’t appeal to a material problem.

It wasn’t about jobs, or NHS waiting lists or house prices. It was a cultural reference. It wasn’t just about blaming the country’s economic problems on migrants. It rhetorically shifts blame for a deep social problem onto people who have moved here from abroad.

And like the economic problems for which migrants are often made scapegoats, the social problem is real.

7% of British adults say they feel lonely ‘always’ or ‘often’. A further 20% are lonely ‘some of the time’. 13% of people live alone – which makes Britain the loneliest country in Europe. Similarly, another study found that middle-aged English people are the loneliest in Europe. And that the problem is getting worse. British people have fewer friends than those in any other country surveyed.

In other words, Britain – or, perhaps more accurately, England – is already a nation of strangers. Not because of immigration, but because of how people live.