Keir Starmer's migration speech and two huge elephants in the room for Labour

We live in strange times. That was basically Sir Keir Starmer's "rivers of blood" speech - a speech so politically inflammatory a Tory would never have dared make it. I refer of course to the Prime Minister's early morning announcement on immigration - more accurately on his plans to stem, perhaps even stop, immigration.

Gosh, that's impressive stuff Keir. And, fair play, it was tough, hard-hitting, and sensible - goodness, it might even work - you know it felt almost as if an entirely anti-immigrant party was demolishing the Labour vote in huge swathes of the country...

So we had:

Making learning the english language mandatory (an eminently good idea - so many female migrants do not speak the language making integration all but impossible);

Raising the time it takes for a migrant to get settled status rising from five to 10 years - also a long overdue step.

Aside from there being no actual cap on immigration numbers, it all sounded marvellous. Although I was somehow I was put in mind of the kind of rhetoric legendary racist Enoch Powel was coming out with 50 years ago, when migration was 50,000 - miniscule by today's standards.

So what the hard left of the party will make of that is anyone's guess - but I think we can see a Militant-style civil war a-coming down the tracks at a rate of knots. But Starmer made all the right dog-whistle noises. "Make no mistake, this plan means migration will fall, that's a promise," he said.

"When people come to our country they should also commit to integration, learning our language - and we should distinguish between those that do and those that don't," he thundered. Well, drizzled. He said he would end British business' "addiction to cheap overseas labour".

"Every area of the immigration system - work, family and study - will be tightened up so we have more control," he said before opining: "Nations depend on rules - they give shape to our values. You have to have them or you risk becoming an Island of strangers."

Okay it stops short of Enoch's "River Tiber foaming with much blood" but I think we know which gallery he is playing to...And in truth it is the kind of rhetoric the British people have wanted to hear for a long, long time.

But there are two huge elephants in the room. First we have learned a Starmer promise is a gossamer thing, likely to blow away in the wind at the first test. And second, while he might at least be trying to close the migrant door forced wide open by Tony Blair to allow untrammelled inward migration 20 years ago, there was no mention of how he planned to tackle illegal migration.

And, as Nigel Farage pointed out, by the time Starmer was publicly announcing the launch of the White Paper at 8.30am today, already 250 young men had arrived on Britain's shores by the now infamous small boats. And a White Paper that doesn't take illegal migration seriously really isn't worth the paper it's written on.