Category Archives: Immigration

James Cleverly Announces Major Crackdown On Migration Following Record Numbers

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Foreign workers will need to earn at least £38,700 to be given a visa to come to the UK under plans to slash net migration.

Home secretary James Cleverly told the House of Commons that the move was part of a five-point plan to bring down the numbers of immigrants coming to the UK by 300,000 a year.

It comes after new figures revealed two weeks ago that 672,000 more people entered the UK than left it in the 12 months to June.

The Tories’ 2019 general election manifesto pledged to bring the figure down to less than 229,000.

Right-wing Tory backbenchers have warned Rishi Sunak that the party could cease to exist unless it keeps its promise to voters.

Cleverly said he was increasing the minimum salary threshold for foreign workers from £26,200 to £38,700, although it will not apply to those coming to work in health and social care.

The minimum income requirement for anyone wanting to move foreign family members with them will also more than double to £38,700.

Overseas care workers will be banned from bringing dependents with them to the UK, while the shortage occupation list, which allows companies to hire overseas workers for 20% less than the going rate, will be scrapped.

The immigration health surcharge, paid by foreigners who use the NHS, will also be increased from £624 to £1,035, while the graduate visa route will also be reviewed amid concerns it is currently being abused.

He told MPs that immigration was “far too high” and that ministers were now “taking more robust action than any government before” to deal with it.

He said the government’s plans would lead to the “biggest ever reduction in net migration” and mean 300,000 a year fewer people coming to the UK in future.

The home secretary added: “We have taken decisive action to reduce legal migration – enough is enough.”

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said Cleverly’s statement was “an admission of total failure for years by the Conservative government – failure on the immigration system and failure on the economy”.

Christina McAnea, general secretary of the Unison trade union, said: “These cruel plans spell total disaster for the NHS and social care. They benefit no one.

“Migrant workers were encouraged to come here because both sectors are critically short of staff. Hospitals and care homes simply couldn’t function without them.

“There’s also a global shortage of healthcare staff. Migrants will now head to more-welcoming countries, rather than be forced to live without their families.

“The government is playing roulette with essential services just to placate its backbenchers and the far-right.”

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‘We Need Them’: Tory MP Sums Up Why Politicians Have Gone Too Far With Immigration Crackdown

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A Tory MP has called on politicians to be “honest with the public” about why the UK needs immigrants.

Former health minister Steve Brine said there wouldn’t be enough social care workers to “look after your ailing parents” without an influx of foreign labour.

Official figures last week revealed how net migration hit 672,000 in the year to June – three times higher than the government’s target.

Right-wing Conservatives have warned that the party could cease to exist if it fails to bring the number down before the next election.

Rishi Sunak has vowed to “clamp down” on immigration with new measures to reduce the numbers coming to the UK.

But on Times Radio today, Brine said “we need these workers” to do the jobs British people won’t.

And he took aim at former home secretary Suella Braverman, who said the immigration numbers were “a slap in the face to the British public”.

Brine, who is chair of the health and social care select committee, said: “Would that be a slap in the face to the care workers from outside the UK who look after your ailing parents?

“Would it be the Ukrainians that are living among us and contributing to our society, are they the slap in the face? Or would it be the people coming here from British Hong Kong?

“I hear this talk all the time and Labour has fallen into this trap as well. Oh, you know, ‘we need to get to the numbers down’, but which of the groups?”

The Winchester MP added: “We need these workers. We need them, particularly in social care.

“We’ve got around 152,000 vacancies in adult social care. And I just say it again, they are the people who look after your ailing parents and grandparents when families can’t because they’re working. They’re the people that pick up the slack.

“And we need to have a very serious look at ourselves as a society as to what do we actually want to be? Do we do we want to be honest with the public, because we need migration into this country.

“And if we’re just going to slash migration so that we can, you know, meet a political priority, and please the former home secretary then I don’t think we’re serving the society and the economy as we should be.”

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Union Boss Accuses Reform UK Leader Of ‘Harking Back To The 1940s’ Over Immigration Comments

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The leader of the right-wing Reform UK party has been accused of “harking back to the 1940s” after he said high levels of immigration were “changing the nature of our country”.

Richard Tice clashed with Christine McAnea, general secretary of the Unison trade union, on BBC 1′s ‘Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg’.

The row came after official figures showed net migration – the difference between the numbers entering and leaving the UK – hit 672,000 in the year to June.

Tice said that was “changing the nature of our country, making us poorer financially and it’s making us poorer culturally”.

But McAnea said: “When I hear people saying things like ‘it will affect our country culturally’ – and I’ve heard you say it before – I don’t even know what that means because we are a country where people come from all over the world.

″I’m the grandchild of migrants from Ireland and my culture of probably very different from yours. It’s an appalling way to turn things into a culture war in this country.”

Asked what he meant, Tice replied: “That sense of Britishness, who we are, our heritage, our history, our Christian values and ethos. That is the base of our single British culture and that’s what we want people to unify under.

“We welcome sensible levels of immigration, but mass immigration – people living in silos, different cultures, is not good for our country.”

McAnea hit back: “This is like harking back to the 1940s or 1950s.”

But Tice said that was “absolute nonsense”.

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Tory MPs Have Warned The Party Could Cease To Exist If It Breaks This Manifesto Pledge

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Tory MPs have warned the party could cease to exist if it breaks its pledge to cut immigration before the next election.

Members of the New Conservatives group said the party faced a “do or die” moment after new figures showed net migration had trebled since 2019.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 672,000 more people entered the UK than left it in the 12 months to June.

The Tories’ 2019 general election manifesto pledged to bring it down to less than 229,000.

In a statement published on X (formerly Twitter), the New Conservatives said the party could not afford to break that “solemn promise”.

“The word existential has been used a lot in recent days, but this really is ‘do or die’ for our party,” they said.

“Each of us made a promise to the electorate. We don’t believe that such promises can be ignored.”

The group, which is largely made up of MPs in the Red Wall seats the Tories won from Labour at the last election, called on the government to produce “a comprehensive package of measures to meet the manifesto promise by the time of the next election”.

They added: “The prime minister, chancellor and new home secretary must show that they stand by the promises on which we were elected to parliament. We must act now.”

Miriam Cates, on of the members of the group, said: “Today’s UK migration figures are astounding: a million new people from abroad were added to our population last year. There is simply no democratic consent for this.

“Attempts to reduce NHS waiting times or solve the housing crisis are futile unless we drastically reduce numbers.”

The Times reported that the PM is looking to announce new plans to curb migration over the next week because of fury on the Tory backbenches over the issue.

Sky News reported that home secretary James Cleverly had promised the government was still “completely committed to reducing levels of legal migration, while also focusing relentlessly” on illegal migration.

From July 2019 to June 2023, the total estimated UK net migration stood at over 1.6 million.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has also estimated that an extra 150,000 migrants would arrive in the next five years – adding around 1.5 million people to the population by 2028-29.

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Keir Starmer Says He Would Scrap The Rwanda Scheme Even If It Is Legal And Working

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Keir Starmer has vowed to axe the government’s Rwanda policy even if it is ruled legal and shown to be working.

The Labour leader said he would introduce a “pragmatic plan” to deal with the problem of small boats carrying asylum seekers across the English Channel if he becomes prime minister.

The Supreme Court will this week beginning hearing the government’s case as to why their plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda does not breach international law.

But appearing on the BBC this morning, Starmer said the scheme would be axed if Labour wins the next election.

Asked by presenter Victoria Derbyshire if he would scrap it even if the Supreme Court rules it is legal and it reduces the number of small boat crossings, Starmer said: “Yes. I believe it’s the wrong policy, it’s hugely expensive, it’s a tiny number of individuals who would go to Rwanda.”

Derbyshire replied: “Even if everybody can see that it’s working, the criminal gangs are declining, fewer people are getting in those boats, fewer people are drowning, you would still reverse it?”

Starmer said: “We’ve been told time and again by the government, even saying that they’ve got a Rwanda scheme would reduce the numbers – that hasn’t happened.”

The Labour leader said the small boat crossing would only stop once the criminal gangs organising the journeys are “smashed”.

He added: “As a pragmatist, I want a pragmatic plan that is actually going to fix this problem, not rhetoric which has got this government absolutely nowhere.”

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‘Just Another Gimmick’: Government Slammed Over Plan To Put Electronic Tags Immigrants

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Government plans to put electronic tags on immigrants to prevent them from absconding have been slammed as “just another gimmick” by Labour.

Home secretary Suella Braverman this morning refused to rule out the move, which was reported by The Times and the Daily Telegraph.

Asked about the plan on Sky News, Braverman said the government “needed to exercise a level of control” of migrants.

She added: “We are exploring all options to ensure that we have that level of control over people so that they can flow through our system swiftly to enable us to thereafter remove them from the United Kingdom.”

But shadow employment minister Justin Madders accused the Home Office of planning to treat asylum seekers like “criminals”.

He said: “The only people you tag are criminals, so my understanding is that people who are coming into this country seeking asylum are not criminals, they’re usually people fleeing persecution.

“If there’s a problem absconding this is the first I’ve heard about it and clearly the solution to that is to get on and process the asylum applications a lot quicker than is happening and this is just another gimmick that is not dealing with the root of the problem at all.”

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, told The Times: “It’s treating people as objects rather than vulnerable men, women and children in search of safety, who should be treated with compassion and humanity.”

The plan was even called into question by right-wing Tory MP John Redwood.

He told Times Radio: “I would need to be persuaded about the role of the electronic tag.

“I’m grateful for the clarification that it’s only going to apply to those who have been found to be illegal migrants. I think the bigger problem is to work out how many people in the system are illegal migrants and therefore need a safe place to return them to, and how many are asylum seekers.”

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‘We Have Failed’: Lee Anderson Admits Tory Government Migration Chaos

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Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson has admitted his party has “failed” to stop migrants crossing the Channel in small boats, despite Rishi Sunak’s pledge to end the journeys.

He said the situation was now “out of control” and that the Conservative government was to blame.

Anderson’s comments, in an interview with Nigel Farage on GB News, followed the row over his claim that migrants who do not want to board the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset should “fuck off back to France”.

He said: “I’m not going to sit here and make excuses to anyone. This is out of control.

“We’re in power at the moment, I’m the deputy chair of the Conservative Party, we’re in government and we have failed on this – there’s no doubt about it.

“We’ve said we’re going to fix it, it is a failure.”

Anderson insisted the Tories had policies in place to tackle the issue, but he added: “I know it’s a bit hard for the British public at the moment to actually understand what we’re trying to do with the Rwanda flights and the Illegal Migration Bill and it seems very slow, it’s cumbersome.

“We’re up against it Nigel, let’s be honest. We’ve got the lefty lawyers, we’ve got the human rights campaigners, we’ve got the charities – everything’s against us, but I’m not making excuses.”

His comments are a further blow to Sunak in a week that was meant to showcase the government’s attempts to stop the boats.

Instead, they have been forced to deny plans to deport migrants to Ascension Island, while they also face legal challenges over the Bibby Stockholm, which has been dubbed a “quasi-prison” by opponents.

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‘Are You Comfortable With This?’ Minister Squirms Over Decision To Paint Over Children’s Mural

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A government minister has refused to back her Tory colleague’s decision to order the removal of a mural of Mickey and Minnie Mouse at an asylum detention centre.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick order the painting, and another one of Tom and Jerry, be painted over because they were too welcoming for children.

On Sophy Ridge on Sunday on Sky News this morning, Treasury minister Victoria Atkins was repeatedly asked whether she was “comfortable” with the controversial move, but refused to do so.

Pointing to a picture of the centre, Ridge said: “If you have a look at it here – Minnie and Mickey Mouse here, Tom and Jerry there, and that was painted over, the decision taken by Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, because it was too welcoming.”

The murals at the Kent Intake Unit in Dover
The murals at the Kent Intake Unit in Dover

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons

Atkins insisted that children who arrive in the UK on small boats are “looked after properly”, but said the government wanted to stop them making the perilous journey in the first place.

But Ridge replied: “Just looking at this picture, I don’t believe you’re comfortable with the decision to paint over – I don’t believe it.”

The minister said: “I’m not comfortable with the idea that people would bring children across.”

The presenter hit back: “I can absolutely understand that, but that’s not the decision of the children. The decision to paint over this mural, it’s a place where kids go – they must be terrified when they go and sit on those chairs, they don’t know what’s happening and where they’re going to go.

“There was an active decision to paint over Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Are you happy with that?”

As she tried to dodge the question again, Ridge said: “Are you comfortable with this? You wouldn’t have done it, would you?”

Atkins replied: “When children come to the UK in those very frightening circumstances, we want them to be looked after well and looked after properly by local authorities.”

In a final attempt to get the minister to answer the question, Ridge said: “I think you can believe all of that and still be kind of uncomfortable about the idea that you’re part of a government that would paint over this mural.”

The minister responded: “What I care about is how those children are looked after when they come here and I’m confident that they’re given the care and the welfare that we would expect and we would want.”

The mural was installed at the Kent Intake Unit, which mainly processes children who arrive in the UK on their own unaccompanied by an adult.

The murals feature in an HM Chief Inspector of Prisons report published in February following an inspection of the facility after its opening in November.

After the i newspaper revealed the order to paint over them, Labour’s shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock tweeted: “The idea that painting over murals for unaccompanied children in immigration centres will somehow stop the boats is utterly absurd. This is a sign of a chaotic government in crisis.”

The Lib Dems tweeted: “This is the worst kind of trivial nastiness – a Mickey Mouse minister taking an axe to Mickey Mouse.”

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Question Time Audience Delivers Damning Verdict On Tory Rwanda Policy

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The government’s Rwanda policy was unanimously rejected by the audience of the BBC’s Question Time – despite most of them being Tory voters.

Not a single person put their hand up when asked by presenter Fiona Bruce asked who backed the controversial plan.

The damning verdict was delivered on the same day that the Court of Appeal ruled that the policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their claims processed was illegal.

Bruce said: “We’re very careful how we select our audiences here and I’m not trying to overstate the importance – this is not a YouGov poll.

“But what I’m seeing here is that even though we have more people who voted Conservative than any other single party here, is there anyone here who supports sending people to Rwanda?”

When no one in the Exeter audience put their hand up, panel member and TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall shouted “good on you.”

Bruce then asked social care minister Helen Whately, who was also on the panel, if she had a response to the audience’s rejection of her government’s signature immigration policy.

She replied: “This is a very hard problem to solve and I think most of us feel that we want to be welcoming people and understand that people have made hard and difficult journeys to try and come to the UK and choose to get into a small boat.”

The results of the straw poll also fly in the face of claims made today by home secretary Suella Braverman when she said the majority of British people back the Rwanda policy.

Rishi Sunak has said the government will appeal against the court’s ruling as he tries to salvage his promise to “stop the boats” carrying migrants across the Channel.

He said: “The policy of this government is very simple, it is this country – and your government – who should decide who comes here, not criminal gangs. And I will do whatever is necessary to make that happen.”

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Suella Braverman Braces For Toughest Week Of Her Political Career

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Suella Braverman has had a bad weekend – but the next few days are set to be even worse.

The home secretary has been keeping a low profile today after the Sunday Times revealed she had asked civil servants to help her avoid a fine for speeding last summer.

Braverman wanted to arrange a private speeding awareness course but, after that proved impossible, she accepted the fine as well as three penalty points on her licence.

Awkwardly, the first Rishi Sunak knew about it was when the story was about to be published.

HuffPost UK understands that although the speeding offence took place when she was still attorney general, Braverman didn’t accept the fine until after Sunak had re-appointed her to the role of home secretary in October.

The PM’s frustration was obvious this morning, when the controversy dominated his press conference marking the end of the G7 summit in Japan.

Asked by the BBC’s Chris Mason if he retained “full confidence” in his cabinet colleague, a grim-faced Sunak replied: ”Well Chris I don’t know the full details about what has happened, nor have I spoken to the home secretary. I think you can see first hand what I’ve been doing over the last day or so.

“But I understand that she’s expressed regret for speeding, accepted the penalty and paid the fine.”

When he returns from the G7 on Monday, the PM will hold talks with Sir Laurie Magnus, his independent ethics adviser, about the Braverman controversy.

Both Labour and the Lib Dems say Sunak must order Sir Laurie to conduct a full inquiry to uncover all the facts.

More immediately, Braverman will have to face the music in the House of Commons at Home Office questions on Monday afternoon.

But that is not the only ordeal the embattled home secretary faces in the coming days.

On Thursday, official figures will confirm that net migration is approaching one million – well above the “tens of thousands” Braverman has said she wants to get it down to.

She – and Sunak – will come under severe pressure from Tory MPs to set out exactly how they plan to reverse the current immigration trend.

Despite the latest controversy surrounding Braverman – she had to quit as home secretary under Liz Truss after breaking security rules, only to be given her job back by Sunak just days later – her position remains safe for now.

One senior Tory source said: “If she was sacked, she would just team up with the other disaffected people and cause the prime minister more trouble. Sometimes it’s best to keep them inside the tent.”

Nevertheless, the week ahead will be the toughest of Braverman’s career. How she handles it will tell us a lot about what kind of future she has in British politics.

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