LONDON: Britain’s interior minister on Monday (Sep 29) proposed tough new rules for migrants seeking to settle in the United Kingdom, as the ruling Labour Party bolstered its fight against the hard right at its annual conference.
Migrants looking to remain indefinitely will have to have a job, not claim benefits, and undertake volunteer community work under plans designed to claw back support among voters drawn to the anti-immigrant Reform UK party, whose popularity is soaring.
Confronting Reform, led by firebrand Nigel Farage, is the main theme of Labour’s four-day gathering in Liverpool, northwest England.
Currently, migrants with family in Britain and who have lived there for five years qualify for “indefinite leave to remain” – permanent residence – as do those who have lived legally in the UK for 10 years on any type of visa.
Eligible applicants meeting those thresholds also earn the right to live, work and study in the UK and to apply for benefits and British citizenship.
But in a major policy shift, interior minister Shabana Mahmood was to tell the Labour conference that migrants would have to make social security contributions, claim no benefits, have a clean criminal record and volunteer in their community in order to stay.
The government will consult on the changes later this year, according to a Labour Party press release.
The announcement comes shortly after Reform, which is currently leading in national polls, said it would get rid of “indefinite leave to remain” altogether, with migrants instead required to reapply for visas every five years.
This would apply to the hundreds of thousands of people who already have the right to remain.
“These measures draw a clear dividing line between the Labour government and Reform, whose recent announcement … would force workers, who have been contributing to this country for decades, to leave their homes and families,” said the Labour party statement.
Embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday called Reform’s plan “racist” and “immoral”, adding it would “tear the country apart”.
