All you need to know about the latest ‘crackdown’ on immigration is that had it been proposed by a Conservative government, Surkeir Starmer would have voted against it.

So, too, would the Home Secretary Pixie Balls-Cooper, self-styled white saviour of the Syrian refugees she promised to put up in her own home – and then didn’t, obviously.

Labour opposed every single measure the Tories wheeled out in their half-hearted, cosmetic efforts to reduce the numbers of migrants settling in Britain. On Day One after becoming Prime Minister, Starmer carried out a cast-iron pledge to abolish the Rwanda deterrent.

Surkeir is a pillar of the metropolitan Far-Left yuman rites racket which continues to roll out the red carpet for migrants, even those with serious criminal convictions.

A few short years ago – when he was still nominally a Jeremy Corbyn acolyte – he even signed a letter calling for a halt to a deportation flight carrying Jamaican criminals found guilty of rape and GBH.

As for Pixie, she was part of the cynical Blairite conspiracy to open the immigration floodgates, a policy designed - in the words of former Labour speechwriter Andrew Neather – ‘to rub the Right’s noses in diversity’.

The PM makes his big announcement today. But he is a pillar of the metropolitan Far-Left yuman rites racket which continues to roll out the red carpet for migrants, writes Richard Littlejohn

Yvette Cooper, pictured with Sir Keir Starmer, was part of the cynical Blairite conspiracy to open the immigration floodgates, Richard Littlejohn writes

Peter, now the noble ‘Lord’ Mandelson – elevated by Starmer to become Our Man In Washington – admitted they ‘sent out search parties’ for migrants in pursuit of economic ‘growth’.

The Blair government deliberately demolished Britain’s border controls on taking office in 1997. The intention was to attract millions of immigrants from across the globe in the hope that they would all return the favour by voting Labour.

A new category of ‘asylum seekers’ was created, effectively granting any foreign national who claimed persecution the right of settlement in Britain.

Background checks were cursory at best, and the consolidation of European human rights legislation into British law made it virtually impossible either to deny entry to or deport anyone, no matter how undesirable.

Labour also signed up to freedom of movement within the EU, which was to lead to a mass influx from Eastern Europe. We were told only 13,000 people would move to the UK from beyond the old Iron Curtain. In the event, more than 2.2 million turned up.

Undeniably, most of those who arrived from Poland and elsewhere brought significant economic benefit. The vast majority were hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding, God-fearing folk.

But they were merely the starter for 10 million from around the globe who have swelled Britain’s population to bursting point over the past two decades. Those are just the people we know about, and it’s fair to say that not all are bringing unalloyed benefit to Britain.

Quite the opposite, actually. A substantial proportion are living on benefits, or billeted in four-star hotels at a cost recently estimated at the thick end of £15 billion, £4 million-plus a day, courtesy of the mug British taxpayer.

So when the Prime Minister declares that the ‘experiment in open borders is over’ and tries to pin the blame on the Tories, it’s worth reminding everyone who started it.

Yes, the Tories shamefully betrayed their promise to Take Back Control and opened the sluices to non-EU migrants. But Labour’s reckless ‘experiment’ kicked it all off and would have given Quatermass a run for his money.

While Starmer was on his hind legs, another 400 largely military-age young men were riding along on the crest of a wave towards Dover, after being ‘rescued’ by Border Force, the cross-Channel floating Uber service for undocumented illegal immigrants.

By the time you read this, they’ll be tucking in to the all-you-can-eat buffet at the nearest Holiday Inn, no questions asked, before disappearing into the black economy and working in a cannabis farm, car wash or bogus ‘Turkish’ barber’s shop run by Albanian gangsters.

So far this year, the number arriving in small boats has hit 12,000, and we haven’t even got into peak season yet. Expect that to at least triple once summer brings calmer seas.

This is despite the fact that Surkeir and Pixie promised to ‘smash the gangs’ responsible for industrial-scale people smuggling.

Having bunged our duplicitous ‘partners’ the French more than £500 million to prevent the dinghies leaving, the gendarmes are still standing back, puffing on their Gitanes, shrugging their Gallic shoulders and wishing the migrants a fond adieu as they head, like bluebirds, towards the White Cliffs of Dover and the warm embrace of the ever-generous British state.

The most ludicrous part of Surkeir’s breakfast press conference was when he claimed that continued membership of the European Convention on Human Rights was absolutely essential to maintaining international co-operation on tackling illegal migration.

Welcome to Starmer’s Looking Glass World where, like Humpty Dumpty, words mean whatever he wants them to mean.

Our slavish adherence to the ECHR is the fundamental reason why we can’t kick out even those foreign nationals convicted of the most heinous crimes, even if they’ve entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas.

Week in, week out, the immigration courts find some innovative, absurd excuse for allowing assorted rapists, murderers, child molesters, etc, to stay in Britain on the grounds they are entitled to a ‘family life’ under European law, from an aversion to chicken nuggets to a fondness for Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz.

A couple of days ago we learned that a Kurdish ‘asylum seeker’ has been granted right to remain because his tattoos ‘deviated from the principles of Islam’ and he might face discrimination were he to be sent home, poor lamb.

You couldn’t make it up.

If he took his tattoos and his football boots to the nearest Premier League ground, he’d probably get a game.

Which, in a way, brings us to Starmer’s extraordinary Cruyff turn – so called after the late Dutch football genius Johann Cruyff’s ability to swivel on a sixpence.

I won’t dwell here on the measures announced, none of which are going to happen, anyway – and even if they did would be about as effective as a chocolate teapot.

No, this is essentially about Starmer. Watching his press conference, I was glad I hadn’t had a Full English. Frankly, I didn’t know whether to laugh or vomit.

Truth be told, nobody should have been in the slightest bit surprised as he appeared to shed every principle he had once espoused in relation to migration.

As I have maintained from the moment he ran for the Labour leadership, the man is a compete and utter lawyer. Under the cab rank principle, they are prepared to argue any brief which comes their way, whether they believe in it or not.

In his professional capacity Starmer, a Guildford Gooner, would no doubt be more than willing to represent Tottenham Hotspur with the same commitment he devotes in his spare time to his ‘beloved Arsenal’, provided there was a drink it for him – either in legal fee refreshers or for political advantage.

His assertion that Britain is becoming a ‘nation of strangers’ was astonishing, coming from a man who when he was DPP would have cheerfully prosecuted for ‘hate crime’ someone expressing a similar sentiment.

A passenger in a bus believed to be carrying migrants leaves Dover today following small boat crossings in the Channel

Until 8.30am, Starmer’s Labour Party would have smeared anybody opposed to immigration as a far-Right, racist bigot.

His claim to be ‘taking back control’ was hilarious, especially from someone who, as Remainer-in-Chief, spent four years straining every sinew to overturn the Leave vote.

So what’s changed? Does anyone seriously believe that Surkeir has undergone a Pauline conversion? Of course not.

Had Labour held on to Runcorn and Reform failed to make much headway in the local elections, Starmer would now be otherwise engaged in rolling the pitch in preparation for his upcoming European surrender summit.

If he was serious about defending Britain’s borders and sovereignty he wouldn’t be about to drag us back into the EU by stealth and sign up to a scheme giving free movement to ‘youths’ aged up to 30.

Even if he was serious, his Left-wing mates in the yuman rites industry would stop him, using the ECHR. Only last week, the Guardianista-dominated Sentencing Council quango cut the recommended sentence for entering Britain illegally to just nine months – below the one-year threshold which could see illegals automatically deported.

No, this is an anti-Reform panic measure, pure and simple. But I wouldn’t hold your breath. There’s about as much chance of Starmer’s ‘crackdown’ making the slightest difference as there is of half a dozen cross-Channel illegals moving in to Pixie Balls-Cooper’s spare bedroom.

And, never mind the Tories, if Nigel Farage had proposed anything remotely similar, Starmer would definitely vote against it.