The left-wing Labour Party government has been accused of kowtowing to foreigners after an internal survey it conducted on whether to strengthen immigration rules was revealed to have mostly polled current visa holders.
This week, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood unveiled her long-awaited plan to update rules on permanent residency and citizenship, carving out fast-tracked citizenship for care workers and a pathway to citizenship for those who enter the country illegally.
While Westminster largely viewed this as the supposed immigration hardliner capitulating to the party’s pro-open-borders hard-left wing, the Home Office appeared to admit the future direction of travel for migration policy for Britain was heavily influenced by foreigners’ opinions.
The Daily Mail reported that a survey of over 200,000 people conducted by the ministry to gather public opinion on planned immigration crackdowns was mostly responded to by current visa holders.
The Home Office said that a staggering 73 per cent of respondents were migrants. However, the true figure may have been even higher, with the government admitting that the 18 per cent who identified as British “may include spouses and family members of visa holders”.
Reform UK Shadow Home Secretary Zia Yusuf said that foreign nationals should have “obviously” not been involved in the consultation, quipping that it was unsurprising that the would support “accelerated access to our welfare state”.
“Reform won’t ask half the world about British immigration policy. Only one view matters to us: The British people’s,” he said.
“This is the insanity of how the Tories and Labour have run this country. Shabana Mahmood, when she was originally talking about doing these changes, she was talking about fairness to British people, she markedly changed her tone in the last 48 hours, now it’s quote ‘balancing’ fairness to British people and foreign nationals, and that’s the key philosophical divide.”
It comes as Home Secretary Mahmood was also forced to admit that her care workers scheme would have a significant “impact” on the amount of money spent on welfare.
“There will be savings in the billions, but of course, allowing people to settle at five years, given the unique contribution of care workers, in particular, obviously that does have an impact on the numbers,” she said.
“But I think it is the right treatment. It is a fair settlement, and it does recognise the uniqueness of this cohort.”
According to her own department, the move to 300,000 care workers on a fast track to permanent residency status — and with it access to Britain’s generous welfare system — would cost the taxpayer some £10 billion in additional welfare payments, healthcare spending, and lowered tax collection.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said that if elected, his party will review all those granted citizenship under Mahmood’s scheme, aiming to revoke citizenship from migrants who do “not add value” to the country.
The Reform boss has also vowed to eliminate permanent residency status — known in the UK as Indefinite Leave to Remain — and replace it with a five-year work visa. This, Farage said, would prevent the worst impacts of the “Boriswave”, which saw the country flooded with millions of migrants as a result of former PM Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit immigration legislation, despite having promised to the public to lower migration.
Speaking from London on Tuesday, Mr Farage said: “Indefinite leave to remain after five years in a country is not a right and actually is being abused by too many people who use it as a means not only to live on benefits for the rest of their lives but also to allow them to bring family members in from across the rest of the world.”
Vowing to reverse the scheme, the Reform chief added: “Normal countries don’t give out work visas, allow you to bring dependence, automatically give you indefinite leave to remain and then one year later citizenship. We are uniquely stupid in doing this. And we’ve been uniquely stupid in doing this for far too many years.”
