Changes to immigration rules announced by Starmer

[OneAmberFinch]

Full white paper here is extensive and announces changes to all avenues of migration - basically their approach to resolving the issues of massively increased migration from 2019-2023/4.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6821aec3f16c0654b19060ac/restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-white-paper.pdf

And Starmer's commentary on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ce810e3z6dkt

Handful of headline changes: default timeline to get ILR to go to 10 years instead of 5; abolishing new care worker visas; raising skills threshold for Skilled Workers back up to graduate level; increasing minimum grades required for student visas; various bits and pieces around English language requirements among several other policies

We are talking about the UK and its immigration figures, 2 senior members of the opposition both say Brexit has damaged our ability to deport failed asylum seekers.

I'm at a loss as to why this is so hard to comprehend.

I think like other businesses they are going to have to pay their staff an appropriate amount for the job they do. Care homes are competing for staff against other low wage companies. For example where I live pays its staff a bit off minimum wage but you get to wfh 3 days. The office is nice free fruit and coffee, opportunities for progression. Mainly Mon - Fri one Sat a month. Or a comparatively hard slog in a care home, nightshifts etc. The reablement team (carers that do visits post hospital stays) has no issues recruiting but are a grade 4 council position so are on nearly £15 an hour and a really good pension.

I’ve worked in a care home ( just as a domestic) and there are lots of good parts, some of the residents were lovely but obviously gutting when they pass away. The reality is though I get paid more now to sit on my arse with a laptop as cleaning / care / childcare isn’t really valued.

I’m sure you are at a loss.

Germany is still in the DA @Clavinovahas posted enough data for the U.K. too which is all publicly available.

You just have to read and take it in.

Nope, i'll take what Philp and Stride say, because thats what is relevant to the UK, not Germany, not Italy etc etc

Aside awful what the opposition is saying, putting party politics before what is best for the UK, deriding any EU deal before even seeing it! shameful.

Their deal was terrible, e.g destroyed shell fishing in Cornwall

I know you will, but only this time otherwise it’s all attacks and disbelief.

The numbers don’t care about politics just read those.

Well, one has to ask ones self, why would two leading Tories say that Brexit has made deporting migrants harder if it weren't true?

I have no idea but here are the facts:

Brexit has not necessarily made deporting people harder, but it has changed the process, particularly for EU citizens. While the UK now has more control over its borders, the rules for deporting EU citizens have changed, but are similar to those for non-British citizens. The UK no longer has to follow the Dublin III Regulation, which allowed for the transfer of asylum seekers to EU member states.

After Brexit, EU citizens can be deported for the same reasons as non-British citizens.

Grounds for deportation include being convicted and sentenced to at least 12 months imprisonment, or if deportation is considered conducive to the public good.

The UK can also deport EU citizens who are considered a threat to public security or who have committed serious crimes.

Impact on the UK Immigration System:
Brexit has led to changes in the UK's immigration system, with a new points-based system for visas.

The UK no longer has to follow the Dublin III Regulation, which meant the UK could send asylum seekers to other EU member states.

The UK has the freedom to set its own immigration policies, but it also means they are now more isolated in terms of asylum and migration matters.

Read the words in the quotes and look at the figures @Clavinovahas kindly provided. The numbers can’t be changed, they are publicly recorded.

The Tories are a divided and weakened party which is ideologically split along several axes and trying to figure out what, if anything, will be its next direction.

It's both factually true that Brexit removed a theoretical avenue for asylum deportations and also that historical and peer-comparison data on the ground shows that that avenue doesn't lead to large numbers in practice. Nonetheless this is one potential avenue for an MP to distinguish themselves from the recent Tory governments so it's unsurprising that a few of them might try.

Though why @jasflowers expects to be able to use Chris Philp's comments as a gotcha for @EasternStandard , who has been vocally anti-Tory throughout the thread, I cannot explain.

Uh?

No "Gotcha" thats a silly and childish thing to say, its as Mel Stride said "It's Blindingly Obvious"

Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day!

4 out of 5 voters are anti tory!

what an odd thing to say!

Likewise 4 out of 5 voters are anti Labour! So what?

What matters is which party will get enough votes to form a government next election.

Or possibly a coalition.

Of the remaining 3 out of 5 voters who wouldn't choose either Tory or Labour as their first choice (of which more than half are Reform, and the remainder Lib Dem or Green) ... which party do you think they would prefer a coalition with?

Yes and all people are really interested in is lowering illegal immigration.

I don't think that's true. Almost 1 million net migrants in 2024 was far too many. And the rules were ridiculously - knowingly - lax.

This news doesn’t seem to have had much attention but is relevant to this thread and I’m just wondering how it will affect the Reform/ Tory vote I guess.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgx3ekkw1eo

I'm very glad the changes to the rules have worked, and numbers look like they are going down fast. It was an urgent issue: granted immigration can't be reversed.

It's a bit shocking to have it confirmed quite how directly the recent loosening of migration policy around dependents and the abuse of student visas had increased migration by so much. That it was so quickly reversed by removing those blatant fake avenues. Labour seem to be suggesting that it's also because failed asylum and illegal immigration was let slide. I'd like to know more about what they've changed.

It's certainly become very clear that the crazy high migration Boris encouraged was far from inevitable.

I think it's only fair to point out that the reduction in numbers was due to the last governments change to rules around visas ie not allowing applicants to bring their dependents with them.

Nothing to do with this Labour government

Yes it takes time for policies to show in figures. The halving is from last gov changes to visas.

Right. Thanks to Suella Braverman, international students are now spending their £££££ getting their Masters at universities in other countries that let them take their kids with them. It's not as though your higher institutions and student towns needed any of that money coming in. Truly, a cause for celebration!

Fine by me.
Then the other countries can pick up the tab when all the kids need to go to school or get sick.

We have enough spongers in this country without importing any more.

The spongers who pay double the fees and whom Coventry University estimate generate £651m a year for their city's economy?

I am sure the UK students whose fees will be increasing again to help cover the massive shortfall will be fine with it.

I know it's not personal- no need to tell me again- but all the rhetoric about recent migrant = sponger is beginning to wear on me. Going to just call myself an expatriate! Sounds more glam.

Oh well. It will be interesting to check back in 5 years and see how universities, care homes and taxpayers are doing. If using a sledgehammer as a weapon doesn't work, who will be left to blame?

It's mad there's no way of differentiating between quality of institution when allotting visas to overseas students. Someone studying a physics-related PhD at Cambridge or Imperial? Fair enough, and maybe they can bring their partner and children. A MSc in International Business at the University of Bradford? Come on.

@TheHouseofGirth They seem very pleased to take your hefty tax contributions. You see how people here fell over themselves to reassure you they don't mind YOU when you mentioned your salary. But still... you're a bit of a sponger, ain't ya. Deep down. Confess.

My country has a strongly rebounding international student economy (worth a great deal of money to us) and our universities are some of those benefitting from this particular kneejerk anti-LEGAL-immigrant policy of the UK's, so rule Britannia, I say.

Our medical vacancies are also being filled by UK-trained graduate doctors who can't get a job in their own country. We didn't even have to pay to educate them. Thanks, UK. Your policies are truly a boon to the world. Not sure what you're getting out of it, though.

@GlutesthatSaluteyou sound annoyed at the policies, is it for personal reasons? It’s hard to get visas down but no party can get voted in with 700k plus a year. It just became too much politically.

There are upsides to having so many people arrive for things such as care and universities but also downsides. I don’t feel strongly about legal migration really, but 700k plus is high and the last gov put policies in although they’re no longer in to say we did this. A bit too late.

@glutesthatsalute You're getting our young doctors (who we spent £200k to train) because of our loose immigration policy which actually makes it easier for overseas doctors to get the job than our own newly qualified doctors. You must see that this is another area we need to tighten up, to prioritise them? Hopefully that is next.

I'll be interested to see a better breakdown of which students are choosing not to come to the UK. You're right that we absolutely want to keep inviting genuine postgraduate students - and if we are losing them back to your country then that's our loss and your gain.

It has become unbalanced though - and a slight rebalancing is no bad thing. A friend in research has told me that in recent years she now has almost entirely international postgrads coming to her Universiry. They're great students, but we need our own young people to take those top opportunities too. A mix is healthy. Yes, it will cost more to fund universities - but this is the mistake we keep making: accepting some cash in hand now, and selling out our future.

The student visas we really need to stop though is those being sold not as an educational opportunity but as a route for the whole family into the country. You can't pretend that isn't happening in large numbers. The trick is which levers to pull in order to stop that whilst still keeping (enough) real, high-level incoming students.

I work with many colleagues who are fairly recent immigrants. I value them hugely, and of course no one sees them as spongers. Ironically, one of my colleagues who I most want to stay is considering moving because of our high tax regime, which he sees as caused by overly generous social provision removing the incentive to work. He also sees uncontrolled migration and a lack of protection of our training and work opportunities for the existing population as a huge threat to the UK's future prosperity. He was committed to the UK - kids at school, fully integrated into UK culture. What is making him reconsider is concern for the UK's economy - due to our choices - not any imagined sentiment against him. He knows he will never use benefits or be out of a job.

To conflate concern over huge, uncontrolled, economically costly low-skilled immigration with negativity towards valued, high-skilled colleagues is ridiculously reductive.