Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will use her first Labour Party conference speech to unveil proposals requiring foreign citizens to “earn” indefinite leave to remain. Under the new rules, migrants will need to:
- Speak English to a high standard
- Hold a clean criminal record
- Be in work and paying national insurance contributions
- Avoid claiming benefits
- Volunteer in their community
Those who fail to meet the criteria will be forced to leave the country once their visa expires. The time frame for settlement will also rise from the current five years to a minimum of ten. Migrants who commit crimes could face longer waiting periods or be barred altogether.
Mahmood will warn delegates:
“If Labour does not toughen its policy, there is a risk working people will turn away from us, the party that for over a hundred years has been their party, and seek solace in the false promises of Farage.”
Labour vs Reform UK
Nigel Farage has pledged to abolish indefinite leave to remain entirely, a move Sir Keir Starmer condemned as “racist”, warning it would “tear our country apart” by targeting migrants who have lived in Britain for years, contributing to hospitals, schools and businesses.
Labour insists its policy will not apply to those who already have settled status. But it will place new hurdles on future applicants, particularly refugees, who are more likely to rely on benefits and face higher unemployment rates.
Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said the new approach marked a shift away from a “box ticking exercise” but warned that measuring community volunteering would be difficult.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, criticised the move:
“By punishing refugees for needing help, we are saying that no matter how hard you work in the future, you will never have a safe permanent home in Britain. This is the opposite of encouraging integration.”
Political Pressure
The announcement comes as small boat crossings continue. On Saturday, 125 migrants arrived in Britain on a single boat, the highest number recorded in one crossing.
Lord Hermer, the attorney general, cautioned Labour against ceding ground to right wing populists and urged the party to defend Britains membership of the European Convention on Human Rights.
