Will Keir Starmer's migration crackdown finally let Britain ‘take back control'?
On Monday, British prime minister Keir Starmer stood in front a room full of journalists in Downing Street and announced his Government's new crackdown on legal immigration.
Standing before a row of nodding Cabinet members, the Labour leader solemnly declared that Britain's 'experiment is over' with mass immigration before repeatedly cited the old Brexit slogan about 'taking back control' of Britain's borders.
The British government says its new white paper on immigration is about restoring control and creating a system which 'promotes growth but is controlled and managed'.
But how did a man, who previously opposed Brexit, called for the return of free movement between Britain and the EU, and who said 'we welcome migrants, we don't scapegoat them', change his views so radically?
READ MORE
How does Starmer justify this U-turn on migration? What has changed for legal migrants planning to work or study in the UK?
And can the Labour leader get away with taking a position at odds with many of his own MPs and Labour supporters?
Today on The Irish Times In The News podcast, London correspondent Mark Paul discusses the implications of the British prime minister's new hardline approach to immigration.
Presented by Sorcha Pollak. Produced by Declan Conlon.
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RTÉ News
3 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Govt leaders agree to extend RPZs across country
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It is understood that landlords will only be able to 'reset' a rent if their tenant voluntarily leaves. Where a notice to quit is served on a tenant, the landlord can't reset the rent, as the Coalition's aim is to remove an economic incentive for landlords to evict their tenants. In a bid to strike a balance and protect renters, the plan also includes security of tenure for tenants for at least six years. It is understood that the proposal to bring the entire country under the RPZ regime had been previously agreed upon but not made public. Tonight's meeting was attended by Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Simon Harris, Ministers for Housing James Browne, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Jack Chambers. Earlier, Sinn Féin said the Government's proposals to restructure RPZs will lead to significant increases for many renters and put many at risk of homelessness. Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Eoin Ó Broin accused the Taoiseach of gaslighting renters and deliberately misleading the public by claiming that the Government's proposals to restructure RPZs are balanced. and they would give greater protections to renters and provide certainty for investors. However, this is a contentious political decision. "When the Taoiseach said yesterday that this was a balanced package to protect renters and encourage investment, he is deliberately misleading the public," Mr Ó Broin said. "He is gaslighting renters, and I'm not even sure he fully understands the extent which they're putting huge numbers of people, young people, people approaching pension age, at enormous risk with even greater financial hardship, and in many cases, at risk of homeless," he said. Mr Ó Broin said there are thousands of tenants who signed tenancy agreements before 2022 and these people are only protected for six years before their landlord can evict them for any reason. The Government is proposing a perfectly legal mechanism to give those landlords leave to evict these tenants so they can avail of new rents, claimed Mr Ó Broin. Irish Property Owners Association gives cautious welcome to proposal Irish Property Owners Association (IPOA) chairperson Mary Conway gave a cautious welcome to the proposal. Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms Conway said there is very little detail about the plans so far, but landlords would welcome the change to reset rents after a tenant leaves. The inability to do so is one of the biggest disincentives to new investments coming into the market at private investor level, she explained. "That's one of the biggest disincentives to new investments coming into the market at the private investor level, because in the current regime, if a property is sold, a new investor isn't going to buy it because it's capped at the old rent," she said. "That's particularly significant down around the country, where landlords are leaving and there's no incentive for any other landlords to buy the property." There is a lot of focus on apartments in Dublin, Ms Conway said, adding the IPOA represents a lot of one-owner landlords around the country and if they exit the market then there is no incentive for anyone to come in. She said 2% was marginal, but the IPOA welcomed any increase at this stage and particularly the ability to reset rents when a tenant leaves. Mike Allen, the Director of Advocacy at Focus Ireland, said the RPZ proposals could place further financial burden and threaten homelessness on renters when rental subsidies are not increasing. "They seem to be creating a system which creates incentives for landlords to evict tenants so they can bring in something at higher market rates," he said. "And secondly, they're increasing rents right across the board. 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Irish Independent
3 hours ago
- Irish Independent
Fianna Fáil expected to choose official candidate for Irish presidential election by the end of the month
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Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
Why is Irish media so reticent about covering gender issues?
The phrase 'third rail' was originally coined to describe the electrified line that runs alongside train tracks, deadly to the touch. In politics and public discourse, it has come to signify any subject deemed too dangerous, too radioactive, too fraught to approach. And while journalism in a liberal democracy is, in theory, about touching all the rails – especially the live ones – theory and practice often diverge. Last week, the New York Times published all six episodes of The Protocol , a podcast series that represents a significant moment in the polarised US debate around youth transgender healthcare. The series explores how the standardised medical approach to gender transition in minors was developed in the Netherlands in the 1990s. Known as the 'Dutch protocol', the model recommends the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy for carefully assessed adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria. That protocol was later exported, adapted – and contested – elsewhere, including in the United Kingdom and United States, where culture war battle lines have long since been drawn. The New York Times podcast tells a story of shifting medical consensus, political pressure, and institutional confusion. But it also carries a subtext about journalism itself – how hard it can be for newsrooms to report accurately and fairly on an issue that cuts so close to the cultural bone. READ MORE It's worth noting that the New York Times has not emerged from this process unscathed. Over the past few years, its coverage of trans issues has prompted significant internal dissent. A 2022 feature by journalist Emily Bazelon questioning aspects of the prevailing medical model and an article by Katie Baker in 2023 titled, When Students Change Gender Identity and Parents Don't Know sparked public protests, petitions signed by some of the paper's reporters, and an open letter from celebrities and activists accusing the newspaper of platforming 'anti-trans bigotry'. Senior editors responded with unusually sharp criticism of their staff, insisting that journalism 'cannot exist in service of any cause'. The Protocol feels, in part, like an attempt to reset. Bazelon is credited as an adviser on the podcast. The editorial tone is serious, sober, and almost anxious in its caution. There are no polemics. But the very act of producing it – at scale, with resources and rigour – feels like a line being drawn: a claim that this subject, however charged, can and should be reported on without fear or favour. How to manage your pension in these volatile times Listen | 37:00 Which brings us to this side of the Atlantic. In the same week The Protocol dropped, Irish psychotherapist Stella O'Malley published a blog post recounting her own experience with Irish media. O'Malley, a founder of the organisation Genspect, is sharply critical in the post and in an interview on the State of Us podcast , of what she describes as the effective blacklisting of dissenting voices on the issue of youth transition by Irish media, including The Irish Times. 'In Ireland,' she writes, 'cancel culture doesn't burn you at the stake – it quietly leaves you out in the cold'. O'Malley is particularly scathing about RTÉ, where, until 2021, she had been a regular contributor to national discussions on youth mental health. Since then, she says, her media invitations have dried up. 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The Cass Review in the UK, a years-long, evidence-based review of youth gender services led by a respected paediatrician, concluded that the medical model developed in the Netherlands and exported widely was, in many cases, being applied without sufficient clinical oversight. It led directly to the suspension of all routine prescription of puberty blockers to under-18s in the National Health Service. The Irish media coverage of this was scant, scattered and mostly relegated to the opinion pages, even though it had a direct impact on the treatment of Irish children, or that the largest political party on the island, Sinn Féin, was forced into policy contortions on either side of the Border as a result. Why the reticence? There is a commonly heard view that to even enter this debate is to engage in a 'toxic' discourse imported from Britain and the US – best avoided in a mature, progressive society. But this is an odd position, especially in a media culture that otherwise shows little hesitation in following every twist and turn of UK and US affairs, from the post-Brexit travails of the Conservative party to the power struggles within the Trump White House. The truth may be simpler and more uncomfortable. Irish journalism, like Irish society, is small. The circles are tight. The cost of stepping on the wrong third rail – socially, professionally, reputationally – is high. Better, perhaps, to look away. And yet the issues are not going away. Ireland, like every other country, is grappling with questions of medical ethics, consent, identity, and law. Young people experiencing gender distress deserve compassionate, evidence-based care. But they also deserve a society willing to discuss that care honestly. And journalists, if they are doing their jobs, have to be part of that conversation, even when it's difficult.
