Home secretary says PM’s words on immigration were ‘completely different’ when asked about comparisons with notorious Rivers of Blood speechGood morning. Yesterday Keir Starmer unveiled the government’s immigration white paper, a significant policy intervention on a topic that is near the top of the public’s list of concerns. Yet today the debate is dominated not by the actual policies – even though they could cause big problems in some sectors of the economy, as we explain here – but by the language Starmer used to defend them.To recap, in one section of his speech yesterday Starmer said:Nations depend on rules – fair rules. Sometimes they’re written down, often they’re not, but either way, they give shape to our values. They guide us towards our rights, of course, but also our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to one another. Now, in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more important. Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.While, to the immigrant, entry to this country was admission to privileges and opportunities eagerly sought, the impact upon the existing population was very different. For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country.They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighb