UK Labour government toughens immigration plans

Peter Hutchison, Agence France-Presse

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed on Monday to “finally take back control” of Britain’s borders as his government unveiled policies designed to reduce legal immigration and fend off rising support for the hard right. Labour leader Starmer announced he was ending an “experiment in open borders” that saw net migration rise to nearly one million people under the previous Conservative government, which lost last year’s general election. The government’s Immigration White Paper policy document includes plans to cut overseas care workers and increase from five to 10 years the length of time people will have to live in UK before qualifying for settlement and citizenship.

English language rules will also be strengthened, with all adult dependents required to demonstrate a basic understanding, while the length of time students can stay in the UK after completing their studies will be reduced. Starmer said the policies would “finally take back control of our borders”, recalling the pro-Brexit slogan used at the height of the campaign to leave the European Union in 2016. Labour vowed in its general election manifesto last year to significantly reduce net migration, which stood at 728,000 in the 12 months to last June. It had peaked at 906,000 in 2023 after averaging 200,000 for most of the 2010s. Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who voted for the UK to remain part of the EU, is under renewed pressure to tackle immigration following the anti-immigration Reform party’s gains in recent local elections.

Arch-Eurosceptic Nigel Farage’s party won more than 670 local council seats as well as its first two mayoral posts. It is also riding high in national polls, while Labour is struggling. However, Starmer’s tack to the right on immigration risks alienating Labour’s large base of liberal supporters, with the Liberal Democrats and the Greens picking up votes on the left. The premier said that migrants “make a massive contribution” to Britain but alleged the country risks becoming an “island of strangers” without more controls. He added that he wanted net migration to have fallen “significantly” by the next election, likely in 2029, but refused say by how much.

But he came under fire from a Labour MP, with Nadia Whittome accusing him in a post on the BlueSky social media platform of mimicking “the scaremongering of the far-right”. “Migrants are our neighbours, friends and family,” she said, adding the “anti-migrant rhetoric from the government is shameful and dangerous”. The white paper also includes new powers to deport foreigners who commit offences in the country. Currently, the government is only informed of foreign nationals who receive prison sentences. Under the new arrangements all foreign nationals convicted of offences will be flagged to the government. “Britain has been strengthened by people coming to start new businesses, study at universities, contribute to our cultural and sporting excellence and do some of the toughest jobs in our country,” interior minister Yvette Cooper told parliament. “But to be successful and fair, our immigration must be properly controlled and managed,” she said, vowing to “bring net migration down and ... turn the page on chaos”.

The paper also includes new visa controls requiring foreign skilled workers to have a university degree to secure a job in the UK. And to reduce lower skilled migration Cooper has said she aims to cut 50,000 lower-skilled worker visas this year. On the plans to double the length of time before migrants can make settlement or citizenship requests, high-skilled individuals “who play by the rules and contribute to the economy” could be fast-tracked, according to Downing Street. Care England, a charity representing the adult care sector, said the decision to close social care visas to new applications from abroad was a “crushing blow to an already fragile sector”.

“International recruitment wasn’t a silver bullet but it was a lifeline. Taking it away now, with no warning, no funding and no alternative is not just short-sighted — it’s cruel,” said chief executive Martin Green. Starmer is also under pressure to stop the flow of migrants crossing the Channel from France to England on flimsy rubber dinghies.