The British government promised Monday to strengthen migration rules and make more difficult for newcomers to stay permanently in the country, as a sign of growing political pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to reduce immigration numbers.
As part of the plans, visas for certain qualified workers are reduced, the linguistic requirements for an increased immigrants and the duration necessary for most newcomers to qualify for citizenship or the right to remain permanent, from five to 10 years.
In a Downing Street speech, Mr. Starmer, who directed the Labor Party in power, accused his predecessors of having enabled immigration to burst and effectively create experience with open borders.
“Today, this Labor government closes the laboratory. The experience is completed. We regain control of our borders,” he said, adopting the slogan used by pro-Brexit activists before the British referendum to leave the European Union in 2016.
Without his new measures, Mr. Starmer added: “We risk becoming an island of foreigners, not a nation that is advancing together.”
The measures announced on Monday only concern legal immigration. Former conservative leaders have promised to reduce immigration to specific targets, starting with Prime Minister David Cameron, who has notoriously committed to reducing the net migration of hundreds of thousands a year to “tens of thousands”, a policy that he never pronounced and which has become a political responsibility for his party.
Partly following this, Mr. Starmer’s plan does not include any concrete objective for the number of legal immigrants who will be authorized each year, opting rather for a broad commitment.
“Make no mistake, this plan means that migration will fall, it is a promise,” said Downing Street Starmer, adding that if ministers must take other measures to free up pressure on housing and public services, then “mark my words, we will.”
The repression contains risks for the government at a time when the economy is in plates, cracks are visible in the care system for the elderly, and some employers complain about the shortages of labor. But Mr. Starmer rejected the argument that large -scale immigration has by definition favored economic growth.
Its hardening position reflects the way migration is once again a hot button problem in Britain. Earlier this month, Nigel Farage, chief of the British reform anti-immigration party, won an important victory in the regional and mayors-marking a great setback for Mr. Starmer’s Labor Party and the opposition conservatives.
The main ministers of the government have hypothesized that the reform could become the main rival of labor by the next general elections, which could explain a new blunt tone of Mr. Starmer who wrote on social networks: “If you want to live in the United Kingdom, you should speak English.” It is common sense. “
But some criticisms argue that the approach could validate the right -wing populist agenda of Mr. Farage and fuel prejudices. “The Pas-Up in the anti-migrant rhetoric of the government is shameful and dangerous,” wrote Nadia Whittome, labor legislative, on social networks.
Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a research institute specializing in migration and integration, said that the government should show that it was able to manage immigration, but questioned Mr. Starmer’s language. “I think they should do this, with a lot of this kind of content,” he said, “but with a more balanced tone.”
Responding to the announcement that work visas for care workers would end, Martin Green, CEO of Care England, who represents the providers, said “an overwhelming blow for an already fragile sector” and that the government “gave us kicks while we are already broken”.
UK universities, which represents higher education colleges, called on ministers to “carefully reflect” on the impact of a new levy planned for the international costs of students.
Immigration was a great theme as the 2016 referendum approaches, in which 52% of British voted for Brexit. Some of the greatest defenders of Brexit, including Boris Johnson and Mr. Farage, have promised to “regain control” of the migration policy if Great Britain has left the European Union.
But after Brexit, under the direction of Mr. Johnson as Prime Minister, the annual net migration tripled, culminating at more than 900,000 in the year ending in June 2023.
At the same time, the arrivals of asylum seekers from France on small boats often flooded have increased and Mr. Farage capitalized on the two questions.
The criticisms of Mr. Starmer on the right argue that he was not going far enough and notes that because of the restrictions described by the last government towards the end of his time, the figures should in any case. Reform UK wants to freeze what he calls “non -essential immigration”, although it has not explained what it would mean in practice. The conservatives call for a binding annual ceiling.
But the conservatives, who were ejected from power last year after 14 years, have a difficult file to defend. Successive conservative governments have promised to reduce net immigration to less than 100,000 per year, but have ended up chairing this level net migrations.
