Keir Starmer to announce new measures to ‘tighten-up’ immigration system
Good morning. Keir Starmer is today unveiling the government immigration white paper, which he says will tighten the rules across all aspects of the visa system. He is holding a press conference at 8.30am. In comments released overnight, he said this would mark “a clean break from the past”.
It is normal to assume that Whitehall policy changes when government changes, but there is more continuity in policy making than party politicians tend to admit and the “clean break” probably happened 18 months ago. Before then, governments (Labour and Tory) were tolerant of high levels of net migration, both when the UK was in the EU and after it left (when net migration soared under the Tories). In December 2023 James Cleverly, the then home secretary, announced a drastic package of changes to visa rules that he said would cut net migration by 300,000 a year. Today Labour, with Yvette Cooper as home secretary, is going further, but in the same direction. In some respects it’s a Cooperly announcement. But that does not mean it’s not a big deal, particularly for the Labour party.
Some of the commentary around today’s announcement has presented this as a kneejerk response to Reform UK’s huge success in the local elections. Starmer is certainly worried about Reform; in an interview published yesterday, he told the Sun on Sunday that even before the local elections “we were planning on the basis we were likely to be facing Reform at the next election” rather than the Tories as Labour’s main opponents. But Labour is also worried about losing votes to the Liberal Democrats and the Green and, if this was just a Reform sabotage operation, Starmer would have announced this before the local elections, not after. The plans that Starmer is announcing today are the culmination of policy that has been evolving ever since he told the CBI in a speech in 2022 that he wanted “to help the British economy off its immigration dependency”. At that point, if you had told him there was a real chance of Nigel Farage becoming PM by the end of the decade, he would not have taken you seriously.
The white paper has been subject to almost as much pitch rolling and advance briefing as a budget. The Home Office has already released three press notices about it – saying that “Britain’s failed immigration system will be radically reformed”, that the plans will “make it easier to remove foreign criminals committing crimes in the UK”, and that “international recruitment for care workers will end”. And here is Rajeev Syal’s overnight preview.
According to the No 10 overnight briefing, this is what Keir Starmer is due to say this morning.
For years we have had a system that encourages businesses to bring in lower paid workers, rather than invest in our young people.
That is the Britain this broken system has created.
Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control. Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall.
We will create a system that is controlled, selective and fair.
One that recognises those who genuinely contribute to Britain’s growth and society, while restoring common sense and control to our borders.
This is a clean break from the past and will ensure settlement in this country is a privilege that must be earned, not a right.
And when people come to our country, they should also commit to integration and to learning our language.
Lower net migration, higher skills and backing British workers – that is what this white paper will deliver.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Keir Starmer holds a press conference about the immigration white paper.
2.30pm: Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is expected to make a statement to MPs about the immigration white paper.
3.45pm: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
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Key events
It is worth stressing that today’s white paper is about legal immigration. Polling suggests that the public are worried about high levels of legal immigration, but the political debate about immigration is largely driven by concern about illegal, or irregular, immigration – people arriving in small boats, and being housed, particularly in hotels, if they are claiming asylum.
Irregular immigration accounts for only a small proportion overall immigration. According to Office for National Statistics figures, 1.2 million came to live in the year ending June 2024. During that period, 39,000 people arrived on small boats. Most of them tried to claim asylum, and this chart, from the ONS, shows the asylum numbers compared to people coming to the UK through other routes.
This is widely misunderstood. In its briefing on the local elections published last week, the campaign group More in Common released polling showing that many voters – and more than half of Tory and Reform UK supporters – believe more than 50% of immigration to the UK is illegal. (More in Common says the real number is closer to 10%.) Lib Dem and Green supporters are the best informed, but even around a third of them believe the ‘more than 50%’ fiction.
Here is an analysis of the what we are expecting in the white paper from Rajeev Syal, the Guardian’s home affairs editor.
And here is an extract.
[The white paper] will challenge a central tenet of Labour’s economic policies for decades: that immigration is broadly good because it helps the economy to grow.
Government insiders say that the “failed free-market experiment” of allowing overseas workers to freely enter the UK has been a major factor in generating political chaos over the past decade.
In his insistence that foreign workers should learn “our language”, Keir Starmer appears to have adopted elements of the populist language once closely associated with Nigel Farage.
It is the kind of language that generated criticism from Labour politicians when used by the Reform UK leader more than a decade ago.
Keir Starmer to announce new measures to ‘tighten-up’ immigration system
Good morning. Keir Starmer is today unveiling the government immigration white paper, which he says will tighten the rules across all aspects of the visa system. He is holding a press conference at 8.30am. In comments released overnight, he said this would mark “a clean break from the past”.
It is normal to assume that Whitehall policy changes when government changes, but there is more continuity in policy making than party politicians tend to admit and the “clean break” probably happened 18 months ago. Before then, governments (Labour and Tory) were tolerant of high levels of net migration, both when the UK was in the EU and after it left (when net migration soared under the Tories). In December 2023 James Cleverly, the then home secretary, announced a drastic package of changes to visa rules that he said would cut net migration by 300,000 a year. Today Labour, with Yvette Cooper as home secretary, is going further, but in the same direction. In some respects it’s a Cooperly announcement. But that does not mean it’s not a big deal, particularly for the Labour party.
Some of the commentary around today’s announcement has presented this as a kneejerk response to Reform UK’s huge success in the local elections. Starmer is certainly worried about Reform; in an interview published yesterday, he told the Sun on Sunday that even before the local elections “we were planning on the basis we were likely to be facing Reform at the next election” rather than the Tories as Labour’s main opponents. But Labour is also worried about losing votes to the Liberal Democrats and the Green and, if this was just a Reform sabotage operation, Starmer would have announced this before the local elections, not after. The plans that Starmer is announcing today are the culmination of policy that has been evolving ever since he told the CBI in a speech in 2022 that he wanted “to help the British economy off its immigration dependency”. At that point, if you had told him there was a real chance of Nigel Farage becoming PM by the end of the decade, he would not have taken you seriously.
The white paper has been subject to almost as much pitch rolling and advance briefing as a budget. The Home Office has already released three press notices about it – saying that “Britain’s failed immigration system will be radically reformed”, that the plans will “make it easier to remove foreign criminals committing crimes in the UK”, and that “international recruitment for care workers will end”. And here is Rajeev Syal’s overnight preview.
According to the No 10 overnight briefing, this is what Keir Starmer is due to say this morning.
For years we have had a system that encourages businesses to bring in lower paid workers, rather than invest in our young people.
That is the Britain this broken system has created.
Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control. Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall.
We will create a system that is controlled, selective and fair.
One that recognises those who genuinely contribute to Britain’s growth and society, while restoring common sense and control to our borders.
This is a clean break from the past and will ensure settlement in this country is a privilege that must be earned, not a right.
And when people come to our country, they should also commit to integration and to learning our language.
Lower net migration, higher skills and backing British workers – that is what this white paper will deliver.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Keir Starmer holds a press conference about the immigration white paper.
2.30pm: Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is expected to make a statement to MPs about the immigration white paper.
3.45pm: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
