So for Starmer to say that Farage "doesn't like Britain" - as the Labour leader did during his conference speech last month - was astonishingly crass.
But it begs the question: how much do any of us love this country any more? How many of us, if push comes to shove, would go to the wall for Britain? What are our own personal red lines? For some British Jews, it is the thought - all too real - that they might be targeted by homicidal Islamists.
For the rest of us, the threat is less existential, often more financial. According to the Adam Smith Institute, eight per cent of young Britons (aged between 18 and 30) are actively planning to emigrate. A fifth have seriously considered doing so.
Everybody, it seems, wants out. And not just the young. The General Medical Council says one in eight doctors are thinking about joining the brain drain. Companies are abandoning the London Stock Exchange to a degree unknown and millionaires are said to be heading abroad at the rate of one every 45 minutes.
The Left insists that talk of an exodus is scaremongering. But consider this unignorable fact. Of the world's 50 richest cities, only two have fewer wealthy individuals than a decade ago. One is Moscow, currently under drone attack, and the other is London.