British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced a repression of migration to finally honor Brexiter's promise to “take control”, warning that without action, Great Britain risked becoming “an island of foreigners”.
In the radical reforms of the British immigration system, migrants in the United Kingdom will have to spend a decade in the country before applying to settle unless they can show “a real and lasting contribution to the economy and society”.
The proposal to end the automatic regulations after five years is one of the borders provided for on the legal migration which will also strongly restrict the capacity of employers to hire workers abroad for less qualified roles.
The White Immigration Paper has also developed plans to abolish the visa route for social workers, which has been a major migration engine to Great Britain in recent years, and increase the threshold for qualified workers visas at the upper level.
Starmer told a Downing Street press conference on Monday that Great Britain had seen “one nation experience at Borders opened” under the last conservative government, adding: “It is not control, it is chaos.”
The Prime Minister said that his proposed changes, described by the conservatives as too shy, would end a “sordid chapter for our policy, our economy and our country” and will emphasize the training and hiring of British workers.
Starmer refused to put a target on the migration cuts he hoped to make – and rejected a conservative proposal for an annual ceiling – but said: “I am promising that he will drop considerably.”
Net migration reached a peak of 906,000 in the year until June 2023 under the last conservative government, but began to fall after the administration of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak repressed the family and dependent visas.
Starmer's policies and difficult rhetoric occurred during the month that the anti-immigration reform of Nigel Farage in the United Kingdom has obtained major successes during the English local elections and opened a great lead in national opinion polls.
Starmer said on Monday that he did not make changes for political reasons – “targeting these voters, responding to this party” – but because “it's just, and because it is what I think”.
The White Paper Unveiled Monday has also developed plans to increase the salary threshold for all visa holders seeking to provide dependent people and increase the English language requirements for visas holders and their dependents.
Under pressure from the reform and the conservatives to go further, the Prime Minister added that if he needed to take additional measures to reduce immigration, he was ready to do so. “Mark my words, we will do it,” he said.
He has moved away from the suggestions that the repression of migration would undermine the growth rate of Great Britain more, leaving employers gaping work shortages and care houses that find it difficult to find staff.
“The theory that higher migration figures necessarily lead to higher growth has been tested in the past four years,” he said, arguing that migration had quadrupled but that the economy had stagnated.
This complaint is likely to be challenged by economists and employers, but Starmer insisted: “This link does not take these evidence.”
Yvette Cooper, home secretary, said on Sunday that recruitment abroad of care workers would end in a few months following modifications, which will be entirely presented in a white paper on Monday morning.
Other modifications will limit the visas of skilled workers for higher level jobs, employers being given only temporary visas for lower qualified roles where there are staff shortages and plans in place to train and recruit British workers.
Cooper said that the changes to the lower qualified work visas would reduce the arrivals of 50,000 per year.
