Farage wants migrants to reapply for new visas with tougher rules instead of granting indefinite leave to remain, which gives people rights and access to benefits.
“It’s one thing to say we’re going to remove illegal migrants, people who have no right to be here, I’m up for that,” Starmer told the broadcaster.
“It’s [a] completely different thing to say we’re going to reach in to people who are lawfully here and start removing them,” he added.
But ministers, who are gathered in Liverpool, in the north west of England, for Labour’s annual conference, will signal this week that they are open to changing the current system.
Mahmood told the Sun newspaper in a pre-conference interview that she is “looking at how to make sure that settlement in our country – long term settlement, Indefinite Leave to Remain – is linked not just to the job you are doing, the salary you get, the taxes you pay, [but] also the wider contribution you are making to our communities.”
Starmer has arrived in Liverpool facing questions about his leadership, and amid dire poll ratings.
On X, Reform’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice described Starmer’s intervention as “lashing out irrationally.” He said the British prime minister is “terrified of Reform.”