1. London tightens, Rome opens wide: the progressive paradox on immigration
2. Starmer doubles citizenship wait time – Italian left wants to halve it
3. Being progressive today? Just a label: the left is out of touch with reality
Starmer doubles the wait to become British. Meanwhile, Italy’s left wants to cut it in half
While the UK government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer prepares to raise the required residency period for citizenship from five to ten years, Italy’s progressive forces are pushing for the opposite. This creates an immigration paradox: two opposing strategies, two irreconcilable visions of nationhood. And the clearest proof that being “progressive” today is no longer a political direction—it’s just a rhetorical badge.
Starmer, until recently a staunch defender of migration and open borders, has now embraced a stance that just a few years ago would have been labelled “right-wing”. In a press conference at Downing Street, he declared an end to the “failed experiment of open borders” and promised “control and common sense.” Translation: tougher visa rules, stricter language requirements, shorter post-study stays, and above all, a new threshold for citizenship.
Under the new plan—announced on May 12—residents will need ten legal years in the UK before they can apply for citizenship. It’s a decisive shift, reflecting growing public dissatisfaction with decades of lax immigration policies. In the background looms Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, now leading in polls, making it crystal clear: blind tolerance of mass immigration is no longer an electoral asset—it’s a liability.
Starmer’s shift is not just a change in tone. It’s a transformation in political DNA. The Labour Party, long the banner-carrier for pro-migration sentiment, has been forced to admit that ignoring the social, economic and cultural consequences of uncontrolled immigration leads to political collapse. They understood it late—but at least they understood it.
And in Italy?
There, the debate is heading in exactly the opposite direction, highlighting an immigration paradox. A coalition of left-wing and liberal parties, +Europa, Radicali, Possibile, Rifondazione Comunista, has inserted into its referendum campaign a proposal to reduce the time required for citizenship from ten to five years. Framed as a “simplification” and a “step forward for civil rights,” the initiative is in fact a Trojan horse: it leverages popular support for other issues (work, wages, social equity) to push a silent revolution in national identity.
The contrast is brutal. While London moves to address the migration crisis with control and criteria, Rome acts as if it’s still the 1990s, when multiculturalism was the magic wand solution to all social tensions.
The paradox is this: a Labour leader, once critical even of Tony Blair’s policies, now speaks the language of borders and selection.
Italy, the self-styled “modern” left still clings to outdated, utopian solutions, oblivious to their real-world effects.
In the UK, future citizens will need to know the language, prove a decade of lawful residence, and demonstrate they’re not a public burden. In Italy, according to the referendum backers, a five-year work contract will do. No language requirements, no real integration checks. This proposal highlights a clear immigration paradox, aimed more at pleasing NGOs and transnational networks than at strengthening the state.
In the end, the real question is this: what’s left of progressivism?
If UK progressives are now implementing conservative policies, and Italian progressives are chasing fantasies, maybe the term has simply lost all substance. Or worse, it serves only to disguise a profound inability to deal with reality.
In politics, changing course can be strategic. But when it’s done for sheer survival, it rarely inspires trust. And when one refuses to move while the world shifts, the result is not principle—it’s irrelevance. Truly, the immigration paradox looms large over political decisions.
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