Westminster’s wonks have weighed in on Starmer’s Immigration White Paper – and the reviews aren’t glowing. Free-market think tanks dismiss it as “light on solutions” and “too weak, too slow”, while left-leaning voices blast the cut to foreign care workers. Hardly a standing ovation…
The Adam Smith Institute’s Maxwell Marlow warns “the policies intimated at in the paper are, overall, too weak and too slow to come into force. The entire system needs a radical overhaul, with encouragement to invest in automation for core sectors and policy dealing with the complex causes of unemployment in the UK.” Much more to be done…
Left-wing think tank/Labour press arm the Institute for Public Policy Research – whose recent former directors are embedded in the No 10 policy unit – praises the deal as “the biggest shake-up of the immigration system since Brexit” at the same time warning that “extending the standard route to settlement to ten years risks making it harder for people to contribute and settle into their communities while doing little to bring down numbers.”
Centre for Policy Studies says the paper the “right rhetoric, but light on solutions”. Research Director Karl Williams warns: “The measures proposed fall some way short of those actually required to get migration down to the kind of levels which the public would be happy with.”The think tank also notes there is “no decisive action on deporting foreign offenders”…
Migration Watch slams the paper as an “admission of failure with no plan to fix” the crisis. Chairman Alp Mehmet says: “The paper itself includes a few crumbs of comfort but not much on how a ‘significant reduction’ in migration is going to be achieved.”
Director of the left-wing think tank British Future Sunder Katwala blasts the measures: “The public is certainly not crying out for fewer migrant care home workers – seven in ten do not want reductions. Some of its measures could damage rather than encourage integration. The government should be proactive on citizenship, not punitive.”
Policy Exchange’s Stephen Webb warns: “The announced tightening in immigration rules today in some areas is to be welcomed. But in many cases, including the salary threshold, restrictions on the graduate work visa and curtailing applications for care visas for candidates outside the UK, the actual changes are due to take place some time in the next year.” A full timeline on when these measures would actually take place are so far unknown…
Meanwhile the rate of small boat arrivals has doubled so far this year so, and as Guido’s analysis revealed earlier, Starmer’s EU deal will open up the UK to between three and four million extra EU citizens. ‘Island of strangers‘, anyone?
Labour last week finally admitted that it was pursuing a youth mobility deal with the EU after claiming for months that there was “no plan” for one. Coming up on Monday at the EU “strategic partnership” summit in London…
Funnily enough the makeup of EU youth citizens has changed significantly since we were last privy to their arrival. That’s thanks to some wide-ranging migrant naturalisation schemes introduced in recent years…
ITALY: Naturalisation timelines halved from ten to five years. 157,652 sea arrivals in 2023 will gain EU citizenship rights in 2028. So 150,000 annually right there…
SPAIN: New five-year naturalisation pathway is supported by legal aid access. Expected to process about 70,000 new EU citizens annually from 2029…
GERMANY: Naturalisation path reduced from eight to five years with three-year fast track availability applies to 2.5 million legal resident migrants. That’s projected to create 400,000-500,000 new EU citizens annually from 2028…
BULGARIA: Citizenship programme expanded. 50,000-100,000 new citizens annually…
Guido’s analysis shows that the combined impact these new routes to EU citizenship will lead to between three and four million extra EU citizens, a large proportion of which are below 30, equipped with full mobility rights by 2030. A hugely-expanded mobile workforce of naturalised asylum seekers for the UK to be signing up to…
This is the height of irony on the day that Starmer announced his intention to control legal migration in the future. Claims are that arrivals will be capped will be no reassurance to those familiar with the UK’s ability to track incomings and outgoings. Millions of newly-naturalised EU citizens will therefore gain access to the UK under a deal. Brexit – what Brexit?
Keir Starmer is trying to reinvent Labour as the party of border control, unveiling his long-trailed immigration white paper this morning, warning of Britain becoming an “island of strangers.” Guido thought it might be worth dusting off the archives and seeing what Starmer’s cabinet ministers used to say about immigration:
Keir Starmer: In 2020 promised to have an “immigration system based on compassion and dignity. End indefinite detention and call for the closure of centres such as Yarl’s Wood.”
Said in 2015 that Tory legislation to make it a criminal offence to rent accommodation to illegal immigrants promoted “everyday racism.”
Starmer authored a review of ‘Immigration Law and Practice’ in 1988 in which he argued that all immigration law is “racist.”
Yvette Cooper: In 2015 wanted every city town and borough to take 10 refugee families.
In 2015 held up a sign saying ‘refugees welcome’ and said the Government needed to do more to help refugees.
Pat McFadden: In 2018 said“immigration debates dehumanise people” and that it “makes no sense for us to be so focussed on immigration caps and quotas that the NHS cannot employ the qualified doctors we need.”
Angela Rayner: In 2021 slammed arguments for the NHS to be less reliant on migration, saying“Our NHS would collapse without the staff who were born overseas…NHS staff [don’t deserve] this cheap xenophobia.”
David Lammy: In 2018 said: “All the evidence shows both EU and non-EU migrants are hugely beneficial to the UK. Almost every politician knows this, but many are afraid to tell the truth.”
Bridget Phillipson: In 2023 attacked Tory plans to lower student migration numbers.
Liz Kendall: In 2020 slammed proposals for a point-based immigration system and salary thresholds, saying they had “terrible implications for social care” that is “already stretched to breaking point & these proposals will only increase pressure”. In 2019 she also said“Immigration brings a significant net economic benefit to UK.”
Shabana Mahmood: In 2015 slammed the Tories immigration bill over the impact on “asylum seekers at risk of destitution”. Pictured with a sign saying “Refugees welcome here” outside of Parliament.
Jonathan Reynolds: In 2017 spoke of his “fear” that “large numbers want immigration reduced without any link to economic context or labour market needs.”
Lisa Nandy: In 2020 said: “We can’t play dog whistle politics. Labour should never have committed to ending free movement alongside the Tories. We have to listen & make the case for our values- but we must understand why the anti-immigration narrative takes hold & how we can respond.”
Meanwhile, Starmer is gearing up to allow tens of thousands of EU workers into Britain by signing up to an EU-UK youth mobility scheme. So far Labour’s ‘crackdown’ on migration has seen small boat crossings increase by over 40% higher than the figure for this time last year. Still no commitment to a cap on net migration either…
The Home Office has now published its immigration white paper. Read it in full here…
This is only a white paper and there will be battles with departments, mostly the Treasury, to come before this gets close to implementation. Details, especially on issues like the suspension of Article 8 of the ECHR in migration cases, are so far slim…
New statistics released by the Home Office show that 108,138 people applied for asylum in the UK last year. That is a record high…
Records began in 2001. The grant rate has fallen from 67% in 2023 to 47%. 2024’s figures are a whopping 18% jump from 2023’s 91,811 and 5,057 above the previous all-time high of 103,081.In 2002…
Small boat crossings made up 32% of the asylum claims, while the Home Office awarded 850,00 long term visas last year. Labour still refuses to say when small boat numbers will begin to fall…
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper hit the media round this morning, paving the way for Keir Starmer’s much-touted Plan for Change speech later today—a thinly-veiled attempt at a political reset. Starmer is set to outline a series of six “milestones” tied to the government “missions” he unveiled back in 2023, covering the NHS, green energy, education, policing and the economy (despite now shelving his promise to make Britain the G7’s fastest-growing economy). Notably absent, however, is any official commitment to reducing migration…
Appearing on LBC, Nick Ferrari pressed Cooper on whether border security would feature as one of the six milestones. She responded that the plan included “practical milestones” on the NHS, economic growth and others missions, with some details on border control and migration mentioned in the plan separately. Translation: reducing migration doesn’t make the cut for a specific “milestone”…
Cooper also confirmed there was no target figure to reduce legal or illegal migration. Meanwhile, over 20,000 illegal migrants have crossed the Channel since Labour took office and net migration figures continuing to rise. Labour can hammer the Tories’ record on migration as much as they like, though if border security isn’t even included in as a “practical milestone”, that line won’t wash for long…
Badenoch said at her speech on Monday morning: “We are absolutely ready to fight a general election. We saw the results in Aberdeen South: 50% of the vote. Because we can unite the country… It’s about uniting the country, for God’s sake, behind a centre-right agenda.”
