‘I have earned my right to be here’: Indian professor hits out at Keir Starmer’s UK migration plan

What would happen if Britain’s migrant workers downed tools for a month?

A leading Indian academic took aim at Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s hardline immigration crackdown, accusing him of political grandstanding while ignoring the country's dependence on foreign labor.

Dr. Meenakshi Sarkar, Deputy Programme Director at Leeds University Business School, fired off a provocative post in LinkedIn in response to Starmer’s new Immigration White Paper, which promises to lower net migration, raise skill and language requirements, and extend the time for migrants to gain settled status.

“This does not help British people or the economy in any way,” Sarkar wrote, accusing Starmer of pandering to Reform UK-style rhetoric. She urged the Prime Minister to prove the country’s self-reliance by ordering a nationwide halt to all migrant labor—from bin collectors to surgeons, IT professionals, and care workers—for one month, and offering those roles exclusively to British citizens.

“If you can fill these jobs then that job goes and so does the migrant. If not, the problem is not migrants but the skills—or the lack of it—which needs to be addressed,” she said.

Starmer’s proposals come amid soaring political pressure over migration, with net figures nearing one million between 2019 and 2023—a figure he called “chaos” in a post outlining the reforms.

But Sarkar, who says she has contributed over £27,000 in visa fees, taxes, and NHS surcharges over 12 years in the UK, dismissed the framing of migration as a threat. 

She argued international students should no longer be counted as migrants unless switching to work or family visas, calling them an asset to the British economy, not a burden.

She warned that without redefining what it means to be British and fostering a collective national identity, Starmer risks turning the UK into an “island of strangers.”

“I have earned my right to be here and no one can tell me otherwise.”