Labour allowed right-wing, racist rhetoric to go unchallenged for too long. Over the summer, there was a deafening silence from the government as Nigel Farage dominated the news with a series of brazen anti-immigrant announcements, including plans to deport 600,000 migrants over five years and leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
There was a similar lack of response to the horrendous Tommy Robinson march in September – misnamed ‘Unite the Kingdom’ – apart from Hove MP (now minister) Peter Kyle’s misjudged comments that “free speech…is alive and well”.
It took Reform UK’s proposals to abolish indefinite leave to remain before PM Starmer finally called the plans “racist” and “immoral”. In his speech at the Labour conference, Starmer at last came out with challenging talk about leading a “fight for the soul” of the country against Reform and the populist right.
Yet despite his fine words denouncing Farage, I would argue there is little difference between Labour’s policies on migration and those of Reform UK. Proposed government changes to the immigration system, first outlined in May, are draconian and wide-ranging, shifting the narrative from ‘stopping the boats’ to seriously curtailing migration rights.
Doubling the settlement time
Those granted asylum will now have to wait ten years rather than five before they can apply to settle permanently in the UK and they will no longer be able to bring close relatives to the UK. Starmer said: “There will be no golden ticket to settling in the UK”, though some people with “greater contributions” (as yet unspecified) could qualify sooner.
Abolishing the right to family reunion is a major change, which many refugee charities have criticised as “straight from the populist playbook” and will particularly penalise women and children. Refugee Council analyst Jon Featonby commented: “Restricting family reunion only pushes more desperate people into the arms of smugglers in an effort to reunite with loved ones.”
New conditions for claiming leave to remain
In her speech to the Labour conference, new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood set out a range of new conditions that legal migrants would have to meet before being able to apply for indefinite leave to remain or claim benefits, including: learning English to a high level (A-level standard for skilled workers), having a clean criminal record and volunteering in their community.
Campaigning group Reunite Families UK criticised Mahmood’s plans as “hypocritical”, given their closeness to Reform UK’s plans, and “dangerous to community cohesion”. They argue that finding time to volunteer is “unrealistic” and “would also hold migrants to a higher code that no British citizen needs to meet”.
Ending overseas recruitment for social care
Labour’s sweeping immigration reforms also include the end of overseas recruitment of care workers. This has been widely criticised by care providers who regard recruiting from overseas as a “lifeline”. Social care has been in crisis for years: care workers are often paid the minimum wage and, even including staff from other countries, there were more than 131,000 vacancies in the care sector last year.
Nursing leaders have said the NHS and social care would “cease to function without migrant nursing staff” under new rules. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) called the plans “divisive” and “pandering” to Reform UK. RCN’s general secretary Nicola Ranger commented: “While other countries offer immediate paths to settlement for nurses, the UK is going in the opposite direction.”
‘Reinterpreting’ the ECHR
Furthermore, and most worryingly, the PM is seeking to ‘reinterpret’ the ECHR, in order to prevent unsuccessful asylum seekers blocking their deportation. He told the BBC he did not want to “tear down” human rights laws, but wants to look especially at Article 3, which protects against torture and inhumane treatment.
Starmer drew a distinction between deporting someone to “summary execution” and sending them to a country with a different level of prison conditions. However, Sonya Sceats, from the charity Freedom from Torture, called his plans “a pretext for rolling back rights that keep everyone safe from abuse…Chipping away at Article 3 of the ECHR risks setting in train the destruction of the absolute ban on torture…which Britain helped forge and champion over centuries.”
Starmer also wants to revisit Article 8 of the ECHR, which protects the right to family life. I’ve already written in Sussex Bylines about how family rights are being eroded by Labour’s policies, with devastating impact on the mental health of parents and children. To curtail these yet further would be disastrous.
We need a different narrative about migration
There has been widespread opposition to Labour’s plans to tighten the immigration system, and not just from refugee groups. More than 100 charities – including Save the Children, Oxfam, Shelter, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth – wrote to Mahmood calling for an end to the “scapegoating” of migrants and urged the government to tackle the UK’s real problems, such as housing, the climate crisis and the NHS.
The Lib Dems criticised Labour “acting like a tribute act” to Reform UK and called for a more humanitarian approach, with safe and legal routes to asylum. Similarly, new Green Party leader Zack Polanski pointed out the danger in Starmer’s plans: “Labour, though claiming to challenge Reform’s poisonous narrative, is in fact echoing and enabling it.”
Rather than perpetuating negative stereotypes, we need a different narrative that emphasises the positive impact that migrants have had. As Polanski stated: “Britain has always been built on the contribution of people who’ve arrived here to build a better life.”
A refugee, writing from inside Napier barracks, said it well: “Refugees are more than statistics. We are teachers, builders, carers, innovators and leaders…We want to contribute. We want to use our skills, to support ourselves and to serve the communities we now live in.”
Please listen to your critics, Keir Starmer, and stop demonising migrants.
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