FOR THE last three years of her life, my mother lived on an island of strangers. Those “strangers” nursed her, fed her, bathed her, played cards with her, took her to physical therapy and out into the garden and above all they loved her as if she was their own mother.

When she died, three of those “strangers” came to her funeral and they belonged there, just as much as her friends and family members.

Those women — from Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines — were indeed strangers to my mother when she first moved into the south-west London care home that kept her warm, safe and cared for in her last years as dementia gradually took hold.

But they were not “strangers” to this island. They were — and are — the fabric that underpins it, hardworking, devoted, diligent members of UK society, and wildly underpaid.

Most of them had families of their own to tend to as well, but they still worked long shifts, going home at eight at night, then back on the job the following morning.

The three staff members who came to her funeral did so at their own expense and during their time off, precious time they could have instead spent with their own parents and children.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s thanks for their service was to blame them for a flow of “cheap labour” that puts “downward pressure on wages.”

Migrant workers in care homes aren’t bringing down wages. Those wages have been notoriously low for decades. But to those seeking employment here and willing to do this hard and often thankless work, those low wages are often far better than any found at home.

To blame Britain’s care workers for a culture Starmer described as “addicted to importing cheap labour rather than investing in the skills of the people who are here” is not only offensive, it’s completely off the mark. And, of course, racist.

Every single care worker who looked after my mother was a woman of colour. There was no sign on the front door saying “white English people need not apply.” It’s just that they don’t.

But in keeping with Starmer’s mantra of “taking back control,” which, he insists, is “a Labour argument,” skill requirements for migrants will now be raised to degree level. “Immigration should be controlled, we should be choosing who we want, the higher skills, the higher talent route into our country,” Starmer said at his now notorious “island of strangers” press conference.

Could you say “we don’t want you here” any louder? Because you really don’t need a degree to wipe bottoms and spoon-feed soup and take abuse from people who can no longer remember where they are and don’t mean to be mean but have wandered down the nightmarish path of Alzheimer’s from which there is no return.

What you need is patience, kindness, stamina and, above all, a deep well of love.

Starmer’s warning, that “if we do need to do more to relieve pressure on public housing and our public services, then mark my words, we will,” plays directly into the false narrative that it’s immigrants who are burdening our healthcare system. No, Mr Starmer, they are running it.

Migrants “make a massive contribution today and you will never hear me denigrate that,” said Starmer at his press conference before proceeding to do exactly that.

None of this should come as a surprise. We were duly forewarned of Starmer’s Faragist approach to immigration during the election campaign last summer when he said during a debate hosted by the right-wing newspaper, The Sun, that “At the moment people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed because they’re not being processed."

Those remarks rightfully outraged the longstanding Bangladeshi community in the UK, who, just like the care workers from the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa, have provided decades of essential services, working day and night, open 24 hours. And, of course, they aren’t white.

A Labour Party insider who knows Starmer well told me early on, “he will do anything for power.” The trouble is, his policies are handing that power straight to Reform. After all, why choose Starmer’s Reform Lite when you can have the real thing?

“Mark my words,” is a favourite Starmer line. We should. We should mark them and utterly condemn them.

Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland and can be reached @aurelia_pentz