The UK government on Monday promised to strengthen immigration rules and ensure that new entrants will remain in the country forever.
Under the plan, visas for some low-skilled workers will be reduced, language requirements for immigrants raised will be reduced, and the amount of time required for most new employees to obtain citizenship or the right to stay forever will be doubled from five to ten years.
In a speech from Downing Street, Starmer, the governing Labour leader, denounced his predecessor for allowing immigrants undercontrol and effectively creating an open border experiment.
“Today, this labour government is closing its lab. The experiment is over. We are regaining control of the border,” he said.
Without his new measures, Starmer added: “We are not a country where we walk together, risking becoming an island for strangers.”
The measures announced Monday are only relevant to legal immigration. Previous conservative leaders have pledged to reduce immigration to specific targets. It starts with Prime Minister David Cameron. David Cameron has pledged to curb the net transition from hundreds of thousands a year to tens of thousands.
As a result, Starmer's plan does not include a specific target for the number of legal immigrants allowed each year, and instead chooses a broader pledge.
“Undoubtedly, this plan means that migration will fall, and that's a promise,” Starmer said from Downing Street.
The crackdown includes government risks when the economy is flattened and cracks are visible in the elderly care system, with some employers complaining about the labor shortage. But Starmer refused to argue that by definition, large immigration has fueled economic growth.
His reinforcement stance reflects that UK migration is once again a hot button issue. Earlier this month, Nigel Farage, the leader of the British Party of Anti-Immigration Reform, achieved major victories in regional and mayoral elections.
Senior government ministers speculate that reform could emerge as a major rival to workers in the next general election.
However, some critics argue that this approach can test Farage's right-wing populist agenda and fuel bias. “The step-up of anti-immigrant rhetoric from the government is embarrassing and dangerous,” Labour MP Nadia Whitmaker wrote on social media.
Sanderkatwara, director of British Future, a research institute specializing in immigration and integration, said the government needs to show that it can manage immigration, but he questioned Starmer's language. “I think they should do this because there's a lot of this kind of content,” he said.
In response to the announcement that care workers' work visas will be over, Martingleen, CEO of Care England, who represents providers, said it was a “overwhelming blow to an already vulnerable sector” and that the government was “kicking us while it was already down.”
University UK, representing the College of Higher Education, has asked the minister to “think carefully” about the impact of planned new collections on international student fees.
Immigration was a major theme in preparing for the 2016 referendum, with 52% of Britons voting for Brexit. Some of Brexit's biggest supporters, including Boris Johnson and Farage, have pledged to “restore control” of immigration policy if the UK leaves the European Union.
However, after Brexit, under Johnson's guidance as Prime Minister, annual net immigration tripled, peaking at over 900,000 in the year that ended in June 2023.
At the same time, the arrival of asylum seekers from France on small and often endurable boats has increased, and Mr. Farage is taking advantage of both issues.
Critics of Starmer on the right have argued that he has not made enough progress and that the numbers are expected to decrease anyway due to the restrictions outlined by the last government towards the end of power. Reform Britain wants to freeze what is called “non-essential immigrants,” but does not explain what this actually means. Conservatives want binding annual ceilings.
But the Conservatives, who were forced out of power last 14 years later, have a record that is hard to defend. Successive conservative governments have pledged to reduce net immigration to less than 100,000 a year, but have now ruled nine net immigrants at that level.
