100+ Labour MPs Rebel Against Keir Starmer’s UK Immigration Reform Plan
More than 100 Labour Party MPs have told Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government to rethink changes to the UK’s immigration system. This shows how much opposition he is facing from inside his own party.
Bloomberg saw the private letter that they wrote to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood on Wednesday afternoon. That was before a speech she planned to give on Thursday to convince her coworkers that the reforms should go forward. The revisions would make it tougher for many low-income people to get residency and citizenship, but they will make it easier for people with high-paying jobs to do so.
Mahmood will speak at an event put on by the Institute for Public Policy and Research on Thursday. In her prepared remarks, she will add, “Restoring order and control at our border is not a betrayal of Labour values; it is an embodiment of them.”
The letter from Wednesday shows that a group of MPs, about a quarter of the Parliamentary Labour Party, are unlikely to approve the reforms. This means that Starmer’s government will have to deal with another internal rebellion.
In September, Mahmood was named home secretary. His parents came to the UK from Pakistan. He promised to make the country’s borders stricter after months of Labour losing to the anti-immigrant party Reform UK in the polls.
After the coronavirus epidemic, net migration to the UK rose to almost 900,000. This was because then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson eased work restrictions to fill job openings. People were worried about how the growing numbers would affect public services like housing and education. Those anxieties led to rallies that sometimes erupted into violence.
The Conservative government’s last few years in power saw curbs that helped cut net migration down to 204,000 in the 12 months ending in June. However, Mahmood wants to go farther. She’s also trying to stop undocumented immigrants from coming to the UK on small boats that are perilous. These levels have maintained high for a long time.
One of the most important changes she wants to make is to double the amount of time a migrant must have lived in the nation before they can apply for residency, from five years to ten. After three years, visa holders who make more than £125,000 ($167,110) would be able to apply for indefinite permission to remain (ILR). This would make them eligible for greater welfare payments and allow them to work without limits.
But low-paid care workers who come to the UK on Health and Care visas—an expanded category that started in 2022 following the pandemic—would have to wait at least 15 years to apply for ILR. These reforms would affect people who are already in the nation, which means that migrants who are just weeks away from acquiring residency might have to wait years longer.
A other public letter, addressed to Mahmood last month and signed by more than 30 Labour MPs who are mostly on the left side of the party, said the changes to the policy were “deeply unfair.” But the letter from Wednesday is likely to make the home secretary more worried because it was private and got the signatures of more moderate MPs who generally support the administration.
The letter not only criticises the retroactive part of Mahmood’s revisions, but it also criticises the government’s decision to set a minimum 20-year deadline for refugees to be eligible to claim ILR. Every 30 months, the person’s refugee status will be looked at again. If the Home Office thinks the person’s home country is safe, they may be returned back.
MPs also say that the UK may be hurting its own economic competitiveness by making it tougher for businesses to find and keep skilled workers in fields that are already short on skills.
Some of Mahmood’s changes can be made by changing the UK’s immigration rules, which don’t need to be voted on by Parliament. However, changes to refugee status will need a so-called “statutory instrument” to be enforced, according to someone who knows what they’re talking about.
The people who signed Wednesday’s letter think they might be able to utilise parliamentary procedure to compel a vote on some parts of the reforms. This would be disastrous for Starmer if a lot of his own party members went against him.
Tony Vaughan, one of the writers, told Bloomberg, “You don’t win back public trust in the asylum system by threatening to forcibly remove refugees who have lived here legally for 15 or 20 years.”
The prime minister is already having a hard time after losing a number of important advisors. His power has also been eroded by revolts inside Labour that forced him to make a series of bad U-turns.
Mahmood will say, though, that a “loss of control” at the UK’s borders “breeds fear— and when people are afraid, they turn inward.”
On Thursday, she is anticipated to add, “Their vision of this country is getting smaller.” “Patriotism becomes something smaller and darker, and ethno-nationalism comes out.”
At a news conference on Wednesday, Nigel Farage, the head of Reform UK, indicated that he agreed with many of the reforms Mahmood was seeking to make. His party wants to get rid with ILR completely.