Labour are running scared and we're not buying Keir Starmer's 'tough guy' act

British politics has hit a new level of surrealism. Panic-stricken by the local election results, Labour and the Conservatives are now competing to prove their toughness on immigration. Given their jointly abysmal record on controlling our borders, it's a bizarre spectacle, like watching a bunch of alcoholics trying to take charge of the Temperance League.

Their new pose as the stern guardians of Britain's national integrity is a cynical exercise in deceit, fuelled by terror at the advance of Nigel Farage's Reform UK. If the Labour or Tory chiefs actually believed the propaganda they now peddle, they would have taken robust action years ago instead of keeping the floodgates wide open. Today, they condemn the failed "experiment" in mass immigration, but they are the ones who foisted this reckless strategy on our nation without any democratic mandate.

Even as the scale of the disaster became apparent through economic stagnation and social dislocation, they kept battering us with lies such as their mantra "diversity is our strength" or their bogus claim that most migrants "come here to work". In truth, just 15% of the influx from outside the EU is for work purposes.

This week's Theatre of the Absurd was perhaps at its most laughable when hysterical left-wingers tried to draw a parallel between Sir Keir Starmer's new policy launch and Enoch Powell's notorious "rivers of blood" speech of 1968. The explosion of righteous anger was prompted by the Prime Minister's reference to the risk of Britain becoming "an island of strangers," a comment that carried an echo of Powell's warning about Britons "finding themselves strangers in their own country".

Yet this portrayal of Starmer as a born-again bigot is ridiculous. He remains a classic metropolitan lawyer who worships at the shrines of globalism and free movement. This week's rhetoric was driven entirely by opportunism, not conviction. It is why his immigration plan is so limited, mainly comprising minor proposals for bureaucratic and judicial tinkering. The PM wants to give the illusion of rigour while avoiding the substance of real change. When the public see through this dishonest act, his leadership will come under ever greater pressure.

But the Tories cannot take advantage of Labour's troubles as their own record on immigration is so appalling. While Kemi Badenoch may have turned out to be a disappointment as leader, poor at the dispatch box and curiously lethargic about the development of policy, the party's far bigger problem lies in the betrayal of conservatism by the last Tory government's open door approach as restrictions on students, dependents and unskilled workers were lifted and the annual net total of new arrivals neared one million.

It was a gargantuan blunder that not only inflicted huge damage on the fabric of Britain, but also - perhaps permanently - destroyed the Tories' reputation for sound governance. This makes it all the more extraordinary that Westminster should now be rife with speculation about a possible comeback by Boris Johnson, the chief architect of this shambles.

According to his supporters, Boris could be the Tory party's saviour by exploiting what they think is the imminent, inevitable collapse of Reform UK. A news report from Westminster last week spelt out the theory: "Boris will swoop in to save the Tories when Farage self-destructs, allies predict." This is self-delusion on an epic scale. If anyone is likely to disintegrate under pressure, it is the insecure Boris, not the thick-skinned Farage. Moreover, there is no groundswell of public opinion for his return.

A revived Boris leadership might win back some Reform voters in the North and the Midlands, but it would haemorrhage Tory support in southern England, especially to the Liberal Democrats. Indeed, he is not as popular as his cheerleaders pretend, as revealed in the disappointing sales of his muchhyped autobiography last year.

After his 2019 victory, Boris had a wonderful opportunity to reshape British politics, but he squandered the chance through his attachment to the progressive agenda. "I'm pro-immigration," he once declared, an attitude that is embodied by his calls for an illegal migrant amnesty and his insouciance about the massive increase in numbers. But the British people are not so indifferent to the social revolution he helped to enact. For years to come, his party will pay the price.