India, May 14 -- UK PM Keir Starmer chose some ugly phrasing while announcing an overhaul of the country's immigration policy - that rising immigration risked making the UK "an island of strangers". This betrays a capitulation to the politics of xenophobia and racism identified with Reforms UK, a rival party of Starmer's Labour, which recorded a good showing in the recent local polls. The political cost of such panic aside, Starmer needs to take a careful look at the long-term effects of his immigration squeeze. Two key changes announced illustrate the myopia of the new policy. One is the decision to shorten the period for foreign students graduating from UK universities to work there, from 24 months to 18 months. It was the promise of an extended period of work that drew students from countries such as India and China to the UK. As per a 2023 analysis, foreign students (Indians are one of the largest non-EU student-migrant groups in the UK), contributed 10 times more to the UK economy -university fees, local spending, role in innovation and research and addressing skills demand - than they drew from it. So, diminishing the scope of this visa route will affect the British economy. Similarly, stopping dedicated visas for care workers - another visa route that had significant demand from India - could prove a solution worse than the problem for the UK. Care-work needs will only rise for an ageing nation like the UK, and with the local supply of workers far lower than the demand and expensive, the costs could shoot up sharply. Starmer and other mainline-party leaders need to set aright the narrative on immigration. Reimagining the UK as an Anglo-Saxon enclave revolts against the flow of history, and running it will be a costly affair....