Starmer’s not smashing the human trafficking gangs – he’s going into business with them
8 min read
The latest scandal is that Keir Starmer, the UK Prime Minister, is implementing a plan to house asylum seekers in private accommodation, aiming to address the enormous costs associated with the growing number of migrants crossing the Channel.
The British state is using taxpayers’ money to offer private landlords favourable contracts to house asylum-seekers and illegal migrants, prioritising non-tax-paying immigrants over British citizens.
This unfair move has sparked outrage, with many feeling that the government is putting the interests of illegal migrants above those of its own people.
Matt Goodwin points out that Keir Starmer’s Labour government is eroding the social contract between the people and the state and that this could have far-reaching and negative effects on the country.
The Absurd Reality Of Starmer’s Britain
By Matt Goodwin
Keir Starmer isn’t “smashing the gangs” that are breaking our laws and flooding Britain with illegal immigrants – he’s going into business with them.
That’s the conclusion you’d draw after reading about the latest shocking scandal that has just hit the news in Britain.
Against the backdrop of the country’s broken borders, spiralling number of illegal immigrants and collapsing public trust in the willingness of the political class to fix this crisis, something else deeply troubling has just bubbled to the surface.
The British state, the ruling class, are now using the British people’s own money – taxpayers’ money – to offer far more favourable contracts to private landlords who rent their properties to asylum-seekers and illegal migrants instead of renting them to the British people who need them.
That’s right.
Backed by the British state, private companies such as Serco are now proudly boasting about offering landlords far more favourable five-year deals to encourage them to house 30,000 asylum-seekers and illegal migrants, at the expense of the hardworking, tax-paying British people.
Unlike the normal housing market, under these deals, landlords are being offered leases with no risk of arrears or non-payment, funding for property repairs and council tax bills, and no fees for letting companies and property managers.
In other words, they are being offered big incentives to house the illegal migrants who are breaking our laws, while those migrants, too, are being offered even more incentives to enter Britain in the first place – the prospect of their own home. [Note from The Exposé: The more incentives Starmer offers illegal migrants, the more that will come. Instead of marketing Britain as a place for holiday makers to spend their money, for example, he is marketing Britain as a place for illegal immigrants to come and live off taxpayers.]
What this means is that, today, the British people are being put in the truly absurd position of having their own money being used by the British state to outbid them in the private housing sector so that the state can prioritise people who break the law.
As I said yesterday in a video that has got some attention, this is insane.
It is not right. It is not fair. And it is certainly not what the vast majority of people in this country want or voted for.
It’s yet another example of the shocking sense of unfairness that I’ve argued has now become a major theme of Starmer’s Britain – a country in which everybody except the British majority is put first.
Related: The shocking sense of unfairness that now pervades British life, Matt Goodwin, 23 March 2025 (behind a paywall)
In recent years, British workers, British families, and British young people have already found themselves squeezed out of an extremely tight housing market, at least partly because of how mass immigration has been fuelling house prices and rents.
And that’s before you look at social housing, much of which, including close to half of it in London and more than 60 per cent across large parts of other major cities such as Birmingham, goes to people who were not even born in Britain.
But now, amid a worsening border crisis, the ruling class and the state are actively choosing to make things worse and fuel this sense of unfairness by giving a large chunk of private housing to people who are openly, flagrantly breaking our laws.
You might as well put a big, bright, flashing neon sign on the white cliffs of Dover that reads: “free housing for illegal migrants.” Because that’s exactly what is now happening in Labour’s Britain.
While Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have been gaslighting the country by claiming they are “smashing the gangs”, in reality – as everybody can now see – they are strengthening, not smashing, the business model that underpins the gangs.
The Labour government, remember, has scrapped the Conservative Party’s Rwanda plan, which was the only serious deterrent Britain had and one that Labour could not even be bothered to wait and see if it had an effect.
Labour then essentially decriminalised illegal migration into Britain by overturning the Illegal Migration Act, removing age checks and making it easier, not harder, for people to stay in the country once they make it here.
While maintaining one of the most generous welfare systems for illegal migrants in Europe, Labour have also been approving the vast majority of claims that are made for asylum, providing yet another incentive for the gangs and migrants to keep coming, knowing full well they have a very good chance of being allowed to stay in Britain, forever, if they make it.
And now, on TikTok videos that are no doubt being watched from Syria to Iraq, Afghanistan to Eritrea, countless more would-be migrants will be hearing about the apartments and houses that the British state is making available by pushing aside the British people who actually live, work and pay taxes in this country. And many, I suspect, will simply be laughing at us.
Because instead of creating a deterrent, Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper and the Labour government are merely creating more and more incentives for people. Which is why, ever since Labour returned to power, as I warned would happen, the number of small boats has been surging to record heights.
Already, this year, nearly 10,000 illegal migrants have entered Britain on the boats, which is up over 40 per cent on the same time last year, and up over 80 per cent on the same time in 2023. And we’re not even at the long, warm summer months yet.
Related: The small boats crisis is getting worse, not better, Matt Goodwin, 4 April 2025 (behind a paywall)
With 38,000 asylum-seekers already in hotels, according to the latest data, up from 29,000 before last year’s general election, this number is now set to surge even higher as the Labour government continues to lose its grip on the border crisis.
And you know what? That’s not even my biggest concern. My real worry in all this is that Starmer and Labour are now bringing about something much darker and even more sinister in this country – something that could have even more far-reaching and profoundly negative effects.
I’ve written before about the critical importance of the “social contract” – about the critical yet delicate relationship between the people and their rulers.
This is a relationship in which the people voluntarily surrender some of their rights and freedoms to their rulers and the state in exchange for protection and to reap the benefits of living in a well-organised and well-managed society.
Related: Broken Britain in 10 INSANE maps, Matt Goodwin, 4 march 2025 (behind a paywall)
But just ask yourself, what kind of protection is this – a ruling class and a state that, before our very eyes, is prioritising foreigners and law-breakers over its own people when distributing what little housing we have in this country?
Ask yourself, too, what kind of organised society is this – one that not only welcomes but rewards those who break our laws while treating the hard-working, law-abiding majority with such contempt, leaving the British taxpayer with a bill of more than £2 billion a year for these hotel and accommodation costs alone?
And, lastly, ask yourself why should we voluntarily surrender our rights and freedoms to a political class and a state bureaucracy like this, which is at best indifferent and at worst openly hostile toward its own people, who are openly being treated like second-class citizens?
The key point, for me at least, is not just that while Labour promised they would smash the gangs, they’re now going into business with the gangs; it’s that Starmer’s Labour is now rapidly eroding that much deeper, foundational social contract that has long maintained and held this country together.
Millions of people out there, having watched their leaders on both the left and right mismanage the borders for more than a decade, have already been withdrawing their trust and faith in the system.
But now, in the weeks, months and years ahead, many of them will be forced to live with one of these “houses for multiple occupancy” in their neighbourhoods and communities, no longer sure of what is happening to the areas they once knew.
It won’t be members of the elite class who have to live this way, much like it is not members of the elite class who are on waiting lists for social housing, having to compete with dozens of others to rent the same flat, or being squeezed out of buying their own home.
No, as usual, it will be the hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding forgotten majority who have to pay the costs of disastrous policies being pursued by the luxury belief class – the elites who like the idea of open borders so long as they do not have to live with the consequences themselves.
And it’s this dramatic weakening, if not looming collapse, of the social contract, more than anything, that worries me and indeed should worry us all.
Because for the first time in my lifetime, as this scandal underlines, when I look out at Westminster, I now see a ruling class that clearly does not appear all that interested at all in maintaining and strengthening this social contract with the people whom it was elected to serve. Because if it really was interested in the British people, it would not be putting them in this absurd reality.
About the Author
Matthew Goodwin is a British political scientist and commentator known for his research on populism and right-wing movements. He was a professor of politics at the University of Kent until July 2024.
Goodwin has authored several books, including ‘Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics’ and ‘National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy’ (co-authored with Roger Eatwell), and ‘Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain’ (co-authored with Robert Ford).
You can follow him on Substack, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter/X and Facebook.
Featured image: Sir Keir Starmer said he was ‘angry’ about the scale of illegal migration, 31 March 2025. Source: Independent

Source: https://expose-news.com/2025/04/28/starmers-not-smashing-the-human-trafficking-gangs/
All true…. But it takes corrupt, selfish, greedy landlords to accept those tax-payer-funded offers, doesn’t it?
Let’s not absolve those who are easily bribed.