Echoing the language of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in the wake of his triumph in recent English local elections, Mr Starmer said yesterday his new approach to immigration “will finally take back control of our borders and close the book on a squalid chapter for our politics, our economy, and our country”.

His government’s proposals are set out in a new 82-page white paper titled Restoring Control over the Immigration System, which was published yesterday morning.

They include higher skills and salary thresholds for work visas, significant increases to qualifying periods for settlement and citizenship applications, shorter stays on graduate visas, and new English language requirements for migrants, among other changes.

Social care visas will be closed to new applications from abroad in a bid to end all overseas recruitment for social care jobs.

The government also says it will clamp down on “abuse” of the asylum system, including by preventing the use of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to “frustrate deportation where removal is clearly in the public interest”.

Foreign nationals sentenced to less than a year in prison following conviction for a criminal offence will also be considered for deportation, whereas previous efforts focused on those imprisoned for longer.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Mr Starmer said: “I know, on a day like today, people who like politics will try to make this all about politics, about this or that strategy, targeting these voters, responding to that party.

“No. I am doing this because it is right, because it is fair, and because it is what I believe in.”