Jeremy Corbyn showed his true feelings towards prime minister Keir Starmer with a blistering eight-word attack live on LBC Radio. It comes after Starmer accused the UK of becoming an “island of strangers” without tough new policies on immigration, insisting he wants to “take back control of our borders”.

Now Corbyn has compared his speech to Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech, in which he theorised the white British population risked finding “themselves made strangers in their own country”. Speaking on LBC, Corbyn said the PM is “playing straight out of the Enoch Powell playbook”.

He said: “Starmer’s speech about people being foreigners, or unwelcome in their own land and so on is straight out of the Enoch Powell playbook.

“I represent the neighbouring constituency to Keir Starmer. Demographically, [they’re] broadly similar – multicultural, multilingual, basically people generally get along quite well together.

“What’s the message that’s been given to the people who’ve come to this country, work in health, work in education, work in transport, work in care, particularly? And I asked Yvette Cooper this: there’s 130,000 vacancies in the care sector already, what’s she going to do about those?”

Starmer himself told The Guardian: “Migrants make a massive contribution to the UK, and I would never denigrate that.” But he has insisted migrants need to learn English in order to stay in the country, explaining: “Britain is an inclusive and tolerant country, but the public expect that people who come here should be expected to learn the language and integrate.”

He has faced criticism from within his own party for the rhetoric, with Sarah Owen – Labour chair of the women and equalities committee – saying: “Chasing the tail of the right risks taking our country down a very dark path.

“The best way to avoid becoming an ‘island of strangers’ is investing in communities to thrive – not pitting people against each other.”