It is, but the sentiment is not completely bonkers.
If you step back from the individuals involved and look at how Britain has changed over the last 40 years or so, it's clear to see that there has been a kind of liberal progressive consensus amongst the political elites, regardless of party, certainly post Thatcher, that runs through Major's one nation Toryism through to New Labour, Cameron's Con/Lib slop through to Truss and even Johnson and it's the idea of Global Britain, the idea that people are entirely interchangeable, that it is desirable that folk come in or not driven solely by the push and pull of economics, our desire to grow GDP, our tax revenue or the politics of morality as with asylum seekers.
I make no assertion as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing but what I would assert is it cannot be denied.
Starmer just happens to be Johnny on the spot, the latest example of this mindset.