‘Stop the boats’: Sunak’s anti-asylum slogan echoes Australia’s harsh policy

2023/03/10 Leave a comment

Of note and a cautionary tale of simplistic slogans vs complex realities:

“Stop the boats.” The white-on-red slogan on Rishi Sunak’s podium on Tuesday was – word for word – the slogan used by Tony Abbott to win the Australian prime ministership a decade ago.

To Australian audiences, so much of the rhetoric emerging from the UK over its small boats policy is reminiscent of two decades of a toxic domestic debate.

A succession of Australian prime ministers have led the rhetorical charge against asylum seekers, insisting that their arrival is an issue of “national security” and “border protection”. They are “illegals”, “queue jumpers” and “terrorists”, Australians have been told, while people-smugglers are the “scum of the earth”.

That hostile and militarised language has held a potent place in the Australian political debate for 20 years. And the language is the fundamental basis of the policies that flow from it: of deterrence and forcible turnbacks, of “offshoring” and indefinite detention.

The rhetoric not only allows governments to create for asylum seekers a “hostile environment”, it compels it from them. This too has been copied in the UK straight from the Australian playbook.

Even many of the characters are the same. Alexander Downer, Australia’s former high commissioner to the UK, argued in the Daily Mail on Tuesday in support of immediate deportation and a lifetime ban from Britain for “anyone caught trying to enter Britain by a dangerous ‘irregular route’, such as a Channel crossing in a small boat”.

Downer was a foreign minister in the conservative government of John Howard that first implemented the “Pacific solution” of warehousing refugees on foreign islands.

The Tory strategist Sir Lynton Crosby was the federal director of Howard’s conservative Liberal party, overseeing his four successful election campaigns.

And Crosby’s protege Isaac Levido, later an adviser to Boris Johnson, was deputy campaign director for the Liberal party’s 2019 election campaign, bolstering the premiership of Scott Morrison, who came to prominence as the architect of the adamantine Operation Sovereign Borders, and who famously adorned his prime ministerial office with a trophy of a boat engraved “I stopped these”.

Source: ‘Stop the boats’: Sunak’s anti-asylum slogan echoes Australia’s harsh policy

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UK: Braverman seeks to backdate Channel crossings law amid fears of rush

2023/03/08 Leave a comment

The latest effort by the UK government. Numbers are comparable to Roxham Road. And like Roxham Road, France may be less interested than the UK in adopting measures that restrict asylum seekers from leaving France:

Refugees who cross the Channel in small boats from Tuesday could face detention and deportation under a new migration law that Labour and charities have called “unworkable” and “cruel”.

In an acknowledgment that the law will prompt a fresh rush of refugees across the Channel, the Home Office is seeking to make the illegal migration bill apply retrospectively from the day it is introduced to parliament, the Guardian has been told.

Suella Braverman, the home secretary, will ask for the proposed law to be applied from the moment she stands up in the Commons on Tuesday. The move follows criticism from unions that the legislation could result in an increase in trafficking across the Channel as refugees attempt to reach the UK before it is passed.

A Home Office source said: “If parliament passes the bill, the measures will be retrospective and apply from the date of introduction. That’s to stop people smugglers seizing on the opportunity to rush migrants across the Channel to avoid being subject to the new measures.”

Lucy Moreton, of the Immigration Services Union, said the plans would “fuel the service” for people smugglers, at least in the short term, “who could tell would-be arrivals that they needed to travel soon”.

Braverman is expected to say that under the new law, asylum claims from those who travel to the UK in small boats will be inadmissible, and the arrivals will be removed to a third country and banned from returning or claiming citizenship.

Details about how the policy will be implemented are scarce, with previous efforts to tighten procedures – such as the policy to send people to Rwanda – mired in legal challenges.

On Monday evening, a Downing Street spokesperson said Rishi Sunak had spoken to Rwanda’s president ahead of Braverman’s statement.

The prime minister and Paul Kagame “discussed the UK-Rwanda migration partnership and our joint efforts to break the business model of criminal people smugglers and address humanitarian issues”, the spokesperson said.

Source: Braverman seeks to backdate Channel crossings law amid fears of rush

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Why thousands of people who thought they were British could lose …

2023/03/03 Leave a comment

One of the apparent collateral damage of BREXIT:

Confusion has arisen around the British government’s own understanding of its citizenship laws, following a judgment by the UK’s high court. In a ruling handed down on January 20 2023, in the case of Roehrig v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Mr Justice Eyre determined that the restrictive approach applied by the Home Office since 2000 to how the children of EU nationals automatically acquire citizenship is the correct interpretation of the law.

The case in question concerns the nationality of Antoine Lucas Roehrig, who was born on October 20 2000 in the UK. His mother is a French national who had lived and worked in the UK under EU law for the five years before he was born. Roehrig claimed he acquired British citizenship at birth by virtue of section 1(1)(b) of the British Nationality Act 1981 because his mother was settled in the UK at the time he was born. The Home Office disputed that his mother met the act’s criteria for being settled and refused his application for a British passport.

Eyre’s ruling in favour of the Home Office hinges on the government’s interpretation of how the legal definition of being “settled” in the UK applied to EU nationals. It could upend the lives of many thousands of people, who have always believed that they were British.

Indefinite leave to remain

Before 1983, anyone born in the UK automatically acquired British citizenship. After that, when the British Nationality Act 1981 came into force, those born in the UK would only be considered British citizens if at least one of their parents were either a British citizen themselves or “settled” in the UK at the time of the child’s birth.

For 17 years, the Home Office deemed EU nationals exercising free movement rights in the UK to be settled and their UK-born children, thus, British. But on October 2 2000, the Home Office changed the rules. In order to be deemed “settled”, EU nationals now had to apply for and be granted indefinite leave to remain.

The problem is that many EU nationals did not apply for indefinite leave to remain, simply because they did not need it to enter and reside in the UK. Why apply for something you apparently don’t need?

The question posed by Roehrig’s case, therefore, is whether EU nationals without indefinite leave to remain could be considered “settled”. To answer this question, the high court had to determine whether EU nationals met the definition, as specified in section 50 of the British Nationality Act, of someone residing in the UK without any immigration law restrictions on the period that they could stay.

EU law, which had direct effect in the UK until Brexit, effectively created a conditional residence for EU nationals, who could reside in the UK for as long as they remained a “qualified person”. These residence rights were usually granted on the basis of being in employment. In certain circumstances, someone might be eligible through being unable to work due to illness or job loss, through living off personal savings, or through relying on a family member.

Eyre found that this conditional residence had the same effect as an immigration law restriction on the period for which EU nationals could remain in the UK. In other words, he judged that being a “qualified person” under EU free movement law did not mean you can now be deemed to have been “settled”.

This is a surprising interpretation of the law. Until Brexit, and the subsequent requirement to apply for the EU settlement scheme, many EU nationals were able to reside in the UK on the basis of EU law for decades without applying for indefinite leave to remain. They were treated as settled, and their children treated as British.

The impact of this judgment

Importantly, new rules, like those the Home Office introduced on October 2 2000, do not actually change the law. They simply alter the interpretation of the law and how to implement it.

Eyre has decided that the Home Office’s restrictive approach to British citizenship, as applied since October 2 2000, is the correct interpretation of the British Nationality Act. It follows that the previous interpretation, as implemented between 1983 and October 2 2000, was incorrect. This means that the Home Office will have mistakenly granted British citizenship to many people born during this time period to parents who, like Roehrig’s mother, were “qualified persons” under EU free movement law.

Conversely, if Roehrig appeals the judgment, and is successful, it is the restrictive approach the Home Office has taken since 2000 that will be found to be unlawful. The interpretation of the law, as implemented before October 2000, will have been the correct one. In this instance, the Home Office will have mistakenly denied British citizenship to many people born since 2000 to EU nationals who should have been considered to be “settled” in the UK.

Given that the government has greatly underestimated the number of EU nationals living in the UK before Brexit, it is not unreasonable to expect the number of people who could be affected, either way, to be in the tens of thousands.

The secretary of state’s submissions to the high court provided reassurance that the Home Office has accepted “as a matter of policy and fairness” that affected children born before October 2 2000 are British. But this is simply a matter of policy. It provides no legal certainty.

As immigration barrister Colin Yeo warns, the Home Office has nullified citizenship before, relying on the confusing logic that it was never actually held if acquired through error or Home Office mistake. At present, the policy to recognise the British citizenship of those born before October 2 2000 has been paused.

And what of those who have gone on to have their own children, thinking they had passed on their British citizenship? Guaranteeing protection for the affected group could be achieved through legislation which retroactively recognises their acquisition of British citizenship. For now, though, thousands of “possibly British” people with EU national parents are left facing great uncertainty.

Source: Why thousands of people who thought they were British could lose …

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UK now among most accepting countries for foreign workers, survey finds

2023/02/24 Leave a comment

Interesting shift:

The UK has become one of the world’s most accepting places for foreign workers, according to a survey in 24 nations revealing a sharp increase in British acceptance of economic migration.

People in the UK emerged as less likely to think that when jobs are scarce employers should give priority to people of their own country than those in Norway, Canada, France, Spain, the US, Australia and Japan. Only Germany and Sweden were more open on that question.

In what the study’s authors described as “an extraordinary shift”, only 29% of people in the UK in 2022 said priority over jobs should go to local people, compared with 65% when the same question was asked in 2009.

The findings come as employers call for more migration to help fill more than 1m vacancies, and after the prime minister appointed the anti-immigration firebrand Lee Anderson as deputy chair of the Conservative party. He has called people arriving in small boats on the south coast “criminals” and called for them to be “sent back the same day”. Police have been deployed to hotels where asylum seekers are being housed amid violent protests by anti-immigration activists.

“It was unthinkable a decade ago that the UK would top any international league table for positive views of immigration,” said Prof Bobby Duffy, the director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, who shared the findings from the latest round of the survey exclusively with the Guardian and the BBC. “But that’s where we are now, with the UK the least likely, from a wide range of countries, to say we should place strict limits on immigration or prohibit it entirely.”

The UK ranked fourth out of 24 nations for the belief that immigrants have a very or quite good impact on the development of the country – ahead of Norway, Spain, the US and Sweden.

One factor in the shift in opinions on the question of “British jobs for British workers” may be that in 2009 the UK was in a deep recession, with more than double today’s unemployment, whereas today the economy suffers from a worker shortage, with 1.1m vacancies in the UK, 300,000 more than before the pandemic.

Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, last year urged employers to look to the British workforce in the first instance and “get local people”, although the government has widened visa programmes for seasonal workers and care staff.

Duffy said the findings showed that “it’s time to listen more carefully to public attitudes”. He said: “Politicians often misread public opinion on immigration. In the 2000s, Labour government rhetoric and policy on this issue was more relaxed than public preferences, and arguably they paid the price – but the current government is falling into the reverse trap.”

People in the UK are now the least likely of the 24 countries that participate in the World Values Survey study to think immigration increases unemployment, and second from top in thinking that immigrants fill important job vacancies.

They are very likely to say immigration boosts cultural diversity, and very unlikely to think immigration comes with crime and safety risks. However, more people in the UK think immigration leads to “social conflict” than in several other countries, including Canada, Japan and China.

The UK ranks highly for believing immigrants have a positive impact

The World Values Survey asks the same questions in countries that account for almost half the world’s population. The surveys in each country are not carried out simultaneously, so the latest UK findings are compared with data from other countries gathered since 2017.

“We have seen a shift that is quite remarkable in the UK,” said Madeleine Sumption, the director of the migration observatory at Oxford University, adding that the findings were in line with decreasing public concern about immigration since the 2016 EU referendum.

“There is speculation it is about the fact that the end of freedom of movement has created a feeling the UK now has more control,” she said.

She added that there had also been positive media coverage about what migrant workers bring to the economy, especially given worker shortages in industries such as agriculture.

“I think it potentially creates space for a less polarised debate about immigration,” she said. “To the extent there is a consensus that immigration can be positive for the country and the question was how to manage it well, you can imagine that would be more a technocratic debate.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Our points-based immigration system recognises the valuable contribution that people from around the world can make to our economy, public services and wider society. It attracts the best and brightest talent from across the globe by putting skill and talent first – not where someone comes from.”

Source: UK now among most accepting countries for foreign workers, survey finds

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Suella Braverman proved it again: racism is a fire the Tories love to play with

2023/01/21 Leave a comment

Over the top commentary but elements of truth and unfair to conflate recent politicians with those living in a different time and context, with many similarities in various countries:

Last Friday, an 82-year-old woman wrapped up warm and set off on a 200-mile round trip for a meeting that she half suspected wouldn’t even let her in. As you read this, the film of her speaking that evening has been viewed more than five million times. Which is odd, because it’s not much to look at: a wobbly side-view of a woman with white hair, intense closeups of grey cardigan. Bridgerton this is not.

But it’s the words that count. Joan Salter has got herself down to Hampshire for a public meeting with the home secretary, and now it is her turn to ask a question. As a child survivor of the Holocaust, she hears Suella Braverman demean and dehumanise refugees and it is a reminder of how the Nazis justified murdering Jews like her. So why do it?

Even as the words come out, Braverman’s face freezes. The evening so far has been a Tory activists’ love-in, which, Salter tells me later, made her nervous about being the sole dissenter. But then the home secretary responds, “I won’t apologise for the language I’ve used” – and a disturbing truth is exposed about what Britain has become.

Braverman labels those seeking sanctuary in Britain an “invasion”. Quite the word, invasion. It strips people of their humanity and pretends they are instead a hostile army, sent to maraud our borders. Her junior minister Robert Jenrick once begged colleagues not to “demonise” migrants; now he stars in videos almost licking his jowls over “the Albanians” forced on to a flight to Tirana. Salter is right to say such attitudes from the top fuel and license extremists on the ground. We saw it after the toxic Brexit campaign, when Polish-origin schoolchildren in Huntingdon were called “vermin” on cards left outside their school gates, as race and religious hate crimes soared that summer.

Today, the air is once again poisonous. Far-right groups have been visiting accommodation for asylum seekers, trying to terrify those inside – many of whom have fled terror to come here – often before sharing their videos on social media. The anti-fascist campaigners Hope Not Hate recorded 182 such jaunts last year alone, culminating in a petrol bomb tossed at an asylum centre in Dover by a man with links to far-right groups and who would post about how “all Muslims are guilty of grooming … they only rape non-Muslims”.

Unlike those big men in their big boots frightening innocent people, Salter isn’t chasing social media clout. The grandmother wants to warn us not to return to the times that sent her, at the age of three, running with her parents across Europe in search of sanctuary. She does make a mistake in yoking the home secretary to the term “swarms”. As far as I can see, this figurehead for the new Tory extremism has yet to use that vile word. But I can think of a Tory prime minister who has used that word: David Cameron, the Old Etonian never shy of blowing on a dog whistle, who made a speech denouncing multiculturalism even as Tommy Robinson’s troops marched on Luton. And Margaret Thatcher talked of how the British felt “rather swamped” by immigrants. In those venerable names from the party’s past lies the big picture about the Conservatives’ chronic addiction to racist politics.

Source: Suella Braverman proved it again: racism is a fire the Tories love to play with

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Ford: Britons have wised up to the benefits of immigration. It’s about time politicians did too

2022/11/28 Leave a comment

Will see how immigration continues to play out in UK political strategies:

For political veterans, the recent arguments over immigration have a very familiar feel: dire warnings of crisis as official statistics show record numbers of people coming to Britain to work, study and join their families, while a dysfunctional Home Office struggles to cope with a new wave of refugees; a beleaguered government pledging to clamp down, yet lacking the means or will to do so. All are familiar plot lines from past political dramas on immigration 10 or even 20 years ago. The political responses are predictable too – social conservatives thunder about the failure, yet again, to deliver the swingeing cuts they claim voters demand. Liberals prevaricate and change the subject, afraid their arguments are doomed to fail with a sceptical electorate. All the players are locked into the same old roles. None of them seems to realise the script has changed.

One of the most remarkable, yet least remarked upon, changes in politics over the past decade has been the dramatic liberal shift in public opinion on immigration. The decades-long tendency to see immigration as a problem to be controlled is now in rapid decline. The rising view is that immigration is a resource that can deliver gains for all. A majority now see immigration as economically and culturally beneficial, as a driver of economic recovery and a vital source of support for public services. The share of voters who say migration levels should stay the same or increase has never been higher, even as migration has hit record highs.

The public now favours increased recruitment of migrants across a wide range of economic sectors, from the NHS and social care to fruit pickers and pint pullers. Some of the largest positive shifts have come in low-paid sectors struggling with shortages, such as catering and construction. Voters see a case for more migration in practically every economic sector asked about. Only migrant bankers are unwanted.

Like all big changes, this liberal shift has many sources. Demographic change is moving Britain slowly in a liberal direction on many fronts – inherently more migration-sceptical groups are shrinking a little every year, while pro-migration groups grow. Yet the change of the past decade is too broad and fast for population shifts alone to explain. Brexit may be another part of the story – voters approve of the post-Brexit points-based system, which applies equally to all labour migrants, and post-Brexit labour shortages have underlined the economic importance of migrant labour. The Covid and post-Covid period may also have generated a wider direct experience of the vital and often high risk work migrants do, from the NHS and social care, to transport and home-delivery services.

The more moderate and pragmatic public mood is not evident in government rhetoric. The Conservatives are constrained by their heavy reliance on migration sceptics attracted to the party since Brexit by the promise to “take back control”. Fears of an anti-immigrant backlash lock the party into hardline language and proposals, yet fears of an anti-austerity backlash ensure these remain empty gestures. The government needs migrant workers yet cannot bring itself to say so. Likewise, the Rwanda plan for asylum seekers is obviously unworkable yet no one in government can admit it.

This approach is now failing on numerous fronts. Voters have noticed the yawning chasm between Conservative words and deeds. Eight out of 10 disapprove of the government’s record, an all-time low. Even those who approve of the Rwanda scheme see it as gesture politics, expensive and doomed to fail. Nigel Farage remains a more attractive option for migration hardliners, while years of draconian rhetoric have alienated swing voters who now favour a more moderate approach. The Conservatives’ reputation on immigration has been trashed across the board – for decades they led Labour by large margins as the best party to handle the issue. Now Labour is favoured in most polls, the only Tory consolation being that most voters distrust both the parties equally.

A floundering government and a warming public should present opportunities for progressive politicians to make the case for open migration. So far, Labour’s response has been circumspect – balancing recognition of migrants’ economic contributions with calls for business to do more to raise the skills, productivity and wages of British workers. Yet caution brings its own risks. Tough language and vague policy may be prudent on the campaign trail, but risk storing up problems once in government.

A Labour government, like the current Conservative one, will rely on migrant contributions to grow the economy and staff public services. The party needs to make the case in opposition for the reforms it will need in government. It has made a start, pledging to make the current points-based selection system more responsive to changing economic and social needs and to junk the expensive, performative cruelty of the Rwanda scheme. Labour could go further, for example, by promising root-and-branch reform of the toxic “hostile environment” and by offering a new deal to migrants who make their lives here with liberalised citizenship rules, implemented by a swifter, cheaper and more transparent migration bureaucracy.

Labour’s instinct to tread carefully is understandable – the party has been bruised by immigration before, the public is still wary and liberalism on migration remains more prevalent in the big city seats the opposition already holds than the rural or small town seats it needs to win. Yet such risks can be overstated – the Tory voters most open to Labour are pragmatic moderates who see immigration as beneficial. The Conservatives, distrusted by voters, and terrified of a Farageist revolt on their right, cannot contest the new centre ground. Labour has a once in a generation opportunity to change the conversation on immigration. It may be a risk worth taking.

Robert Ford is co-author with Marley Morris of a new report, A New Consensus? How Public Opinion has Changed on Immigration, published by the Institute for Public Policy Research

Source: Britons have wised up to the benefits of immigration. It’s about time politicians did too

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UK: Rishi Sunak mulling curbs on overseas students after immigration rise

2022/11/26 Leave a comment

Another related article. Canada could benefit from a greater emphasis on “quality degrees” and institutions given how a large part of the international student population is becoming a source of low skilled and low paid labour:

The government is looking at introducing new restrictions on ‘low quality’ degrees and preventing foreign applicants from bringing family members to the UK with them.

Curbs being considered by Downing Street could see international students barred unless they gain access to a high-ranking university.

The move was briefed after it emerged net immigration hit a new high, 12 years after David Cameron pledged to bring numbers down to the ‘tens of thousands’.

Around 504,000 more people are estimated to have moved to the UK than left in the 12 months to June 2022, up sharply from 173,000 in the year to June 2021.

People arriving on study visas accounted for the largest proportion of long-term immigration of non-EU nationals, at 277,000, or 39% of the total, according to the Office for National Statistics.

There was a significant rise in students coming to the UK after a few years of lower numbers caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The ONS said ‘unique’ factors such as visa schemes from Ukrainian and Hong Kong citizens had also contributed to the increase.

In the Autumn Budget published earlier this month, the government said it expected immigration levels to return to pre-pandemic levels once ‘these temporary factors ease over time’.

The prime minister’s spokesperson said he is ‘fully committed’ to reducing immigration and blamed ‘unprecedented and unique circumstances’ for the rise.

They added: ‘We’re considering all options to make sure the immigration system is delivering, and that does include looking at the issue of student dependents and low-quality degrees.’

Home secretary Suella Braverman has previously complained about foreign students ‘bringing in family members who can piggyback onto their student visa’ and ‘propping up, frankly, substandard courses in inadequate institutions’.

The move could potentially meet resistance from within the education department, which would be faced with a funding headache if numbers were restricted.

Overseas students paying higher rates than domestic applicants have become a major funding stream for universities and there is pressure on departmental budgets due to inflation and fiscal tightening from the Treasury.

There could also be friction with the Treasury which will be opposed to any immigration changes which risk stifling growth.

Despite higher levels of migration to the UK since Brexit, the UK is struggling with skills and labour shortages in a number of industries.

Confirmed the UK will enter a recession, chancellor Jeremy Hunt last week insisted that immigration is required to boost growth.

He said: ‘There needs to be a long-term plan if we’re going to bring down migration in a way that doesn’t harm the economy.

‘We are recognising that we will need migration for the years ahead – that will be very important for the economy.’

Source: Rishi Sunak mulling curbs on overseas students after immigration rise

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UK: Rishi Sunak faces Tory backlash over record immigration figures

2022/11/26 Leave a comment

Of note:

Rishi Sunak faces backlash from Conservative MPs after new figures showed net migration to the UK soaring to a record high, with 504,000 more people arriving in the country than departing over the past year.

“Unprecedented” global events including the lifting of Covid lockdowns, war in Ukraine and the Chinese security clampdown in Hong Kong sent immigration figures soaring.

At 1.1 million, the total number of arrivals in the 12 months to June was the highest since statistics were first gathered in 1964 and far outweighed the 560,000 departures, despite the fact that for the first time since 1991 more EU nationals left the UK than arrived.

Even after allowing for humanitarian schemes for Ukrainians and Afghans, the figures gave additional weight to the observation that Brexit has not reduced overall migration, as many supporters of the Leave campaign hoped.

Instead, the figures suggest that the result of EU withdrawal has been to alter patterns of migration to the UK, with departing Europeans replaced by nationals of countries like India, Nigeria and China who dominate the tables of work and study visas.

More than 20 Conservative MPs are believed to have signed a letter to Mr Sunak demanding action to bring overall migration numbers down.

Organised by Sir John Hayes – the chair of the Common Sense Group of traditionalist Tories and a close ally of home secretary Suella Braverman – the letter calls on ministers to get a tighter grip on the system for work and study visas, as well as clamping down on unauthorised Channel crossings by boat.

Home Office figures showed an 87 per cent increase to 381,459 in the number of work visas issued over a 12-month period, while visas to study rose by 38 per cent to 597,827. Both figures were more than double pre-Brexit levels.

Sir John said the influx of migrants was placing pressure on the UK’s environment, housing and infrastructure and “displacing” homegrown workers from jobs and training.

“The home secretary has been very open and honest and straightforward about the need for robust action to take control of our borders in relation to small boats,” he told The Independent. “There is a similar job to be done to retake control of visas, which I think are out of control now.”

The scale of immigration flew in the face of a promise in the 2019 Conservative election manifesto – endorsed by Mr Sunak since his arrival at 10 Downing Street – to get overall numbers down, said Hayes.

Responding to the ONS figures on Thursday, Ms Braverman said the record number of people arriving in the UK was “thanks to the generosity of the British people” towards Ukrainians, Afghans and Hong Kong holders of BNO (British national overseas) passports.

“The public rightly expect us to control our borders and we remain committed to reducing migration over time in line with our manifesto commitment,” said the home secretary, who in October told the Conservative conference her personal ambition was to reduce net migration below 100,000.

“My priority remains tackling the rise in dangerous and illegal crossings and stopping the abuse of our system.”

Downing Street said Mr Sunak remained committed to reducing net migration but has not set “a specific timeframe” for achieving the goal. The prime minister’s official spokesman blamed “some unprecedented and unique circumstances” for the record figures.

ONS deputy director Jay Lindop said that a significant driver in the figures was migration from non-EU countries by students, who are no longer forced to work remotely by Covid lockdowns.

An estimated 277,000 arrived in the UK over the past year, an increase from 143,000 in the year before.

The numbers also revealed a growing backlog in dealing with asylum claims, with 117,400 awaiting an initial decision, of whom almost 80,000 have been waiting more than six months.

Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the statistics revealed “serious problems with Conservative mismanagement of the immigration and asylum systems where they have completely failed to get a grip”.

Ministers have failed to tackle the criminal gangs organising Channel crossings and have managed to process the claims of only 2 per cent of the people arriving in small boats over the course of the last year, she said.

“Work visas have also substantially increased as a result of major skills shortages in the UK – yet the Conservatives are not taking any serious action to address skills shortages here at home,” said Ms Cooper.

Maria Stephens, head of campaigns at charity Refugee Action, said that the “snowballing delays in processing asylum claims are destroying lives”.

And Amnesty International called for a “complete overhaul” of the asylum and immigration system, saying that the government should provide safe routes for people seeking to come to Britain.

The organisation’s refugee and migrant rights director, Steve Valdez-Symonds, said: “These figures show the UK’s system for processing asylum claims remains in complete disarray.”

But leading Tory Brexiteer Peter Bone defended the government’s record, telling The Independent: “The fact that we are taking in people from Hong Kong, from Afghanistan and especially from Ukraine is the right thing to do.

“The point is that we are controlling our borders and we are making the decisions, not the EU. Imagine what the figures would have been if we still had free movement of people. That is what Brexit was about – it was never about having no immigration.”

“Student numbers may be rising, but most of them will go back to their home countries. The government’s priority must be stopping the illegal migration by boat across the Channel.”

Source: Rishi Sunak faces Tory backlash over record immigration figures

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UK: More relaxed immigration policies could win over swing voters, analysis finds

2022/11/24 Leave a comment

Of note and to watch:

Public opinion on immigration has warmed “at a striking rate” and adopting a more liberal approach would help both Labour and the Conservatives win over more swing voters, new analysis suggests.

Conventional wisdom in Westminster has long been that tougher border policies are rewarded at the ballot box, with Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer winning praise from Ukip founder Nigel Farage on Tuesday after claiming the UK must end its “immigration dependency”.

But voters’ views of immigration have become increasingly positive since prior to the Brexit referendum, with Ipsos finding for the first time this year that – of those with an opinion on the matter – a majority now believe immigration levels should either increase or stay the same.

This contrasts strongly with the situation in February 2015, when 67 per cent wanted immigration reduced, versus just 20 per cent who wanted it to remain the same and 10 who wanted increased levels.

As a result, new analysis of swing voter intentions by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank suggests that the UK’s two largest political parties both would boost their electoral chances by adopting a more open immigration policy.

By doing so, Sir Keir Starmer’s party would attract 5 per cent of the public, while only repelling 2 per cent. The Conservatives, meanwhile, would attract 3 per cent and repel 2 per cent.

Furthermore, adopting a harsher stance on immigration would attract just 1 per cent of voters to Labour, the research found – while repelling 11 per cent.

For Rishi Sunak’s party, it appears that setting out more punitive policies could now alienate as many swing voters as they attract – flying in the face of his stated hopes of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda and potentially extending the scheme to other countries.

Source: More relaxed immigration policies could win over swing voters, analysis finds

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UK: We must wean economy off immigration, Labour leader to warn businesses

2022/11/23 Leave a comment

Meanwhile, in Canada, the government takes the opposite tack with respect to ongoing increases in immigration levels, making it easier for businesses to employ Temporary Foreign Workers along with almost eliminating study requirement for international students given removal of work hour caps, the latter two reinforcing a low-pay model:

The days of “cheap labour” must end to wean the UK off its “immigration dependency”, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has told business leaders.

Sir Keir called for a plan to train British workers and move the economy away from its “low-pay model”.

But he accepted the need for skilled foreign workers and promise a “pragmatic” approach to immigration.

His speech comes at a time when businesses are calling for more migrant labour to boost economic growth.

The Labour leader’s speech to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference in Birmingham followed that of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday.

Mr Sunak told business leaders having “proper control of our borders” was one of the immediate benefits of Brexit and said curbing illegal migration was the “country’s number one priority right now”.

He spoke after CBI director-general Tony Danker said the UK needed more foreign workers to drive economic growth as the country faces a deep recession.

“People are arguing against immigration – but it’s the only thing that has increased our growth potential since March,” Mr Danker said.

There was considerably less migration during the Covid-19 pandemic than in previous years and the number of EU citizens moving to the UK has dropped since the UK left the European Union.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecasted a decline in net migration, with the number expected to settle at 205,000 a year from 2026 onwards.

In his speech, Sir Keir set out what the UK’s immigration policy would look like under a Labour government, should the party win the next general election.

He promised an immigration system that works better for the needs of business and recognises the need for skilled workers from abroad.

But he stressed that any changes to a points-based migration system “will come with new conditions for business”.

“We will expect you to bring forward a clear plan for higher skills and more training, for better pay and conditions, for investment in new technology,” he said.

“But our common goal must be to help the British economy off its immigration dependency. To start investing more in training up workers who are already here.”

Sir Keir outlined Labour’s plans for reform including:

  • Ensuring all employers able to sponsor visas are meeting decent standards of pay and conditions
  • Speed up visa delays to avoid labour shortages damaging the economy
  • Introduce training and plans for improving pay and conditions for roles that require international recruitment
  • Reforming the Migration Advisory Committee to project future trends more accurately

Sir Keir spoke about immigration in an interview with the BBC last week, saying the UK was recruiting too many people from overseas into the NHS.

Source: We must wean economy off immigration, Labour leader to warn businesses

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