Reform plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain for migrants

[Twiglets1]

BBC report following Farage's press conference this afternoon:

Reform UK has announced it would abolish the right of migrants to qualify for permanent settlement in the UK after five years, if the party wins the next election.

Under the plans, Reform would abolish the right of migrants to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) - which gives migrants rights and access to benefits - and reapply for new visas with tougher rules.

Reform will also unveil plans to bar anyone other than British citizens from accessing welfare. The party claims their plans would save £234bn over several decades.

Reform said it would replace ILR with visas that force migrants to reapply every five years. That includes hundreds of thousands of migrants currently in the UK.
Applicants would also have to meet certain criteria, including a higher salary threshold and standard of English.

The announcement launches Reform's fresh assault on what they brand the "Boriswave" - 3.8 million people who entered the UK after Brexit under looser rules brought in by Boris Johnson's administration.

Speaking at a press conference, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the "main reason" for the policy was to "wake everybody up to the Boris wave".

Hundreds of thousands of these migrants, who have come to the UK since 2021, will soon qualify for permanent residence under the ILR scheme.

Reform said the changes would not apply to EU nationals whose settled status is protected under the European Union Withdrawal Agreement, who make up the majority of benefit claimants by people with ILR.

But EU nationals not benefiting from the provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement will be subject to the new system.

Reform will also introduce a new scheme called Acute Skills Shortage Visas (ASSV) for jobs in crisis. Under the scheme, firms can hire one worker from abroad only if they train one at home.

Reform will also raise the average wait for UK citizenship from six years to seven.

Reform say their policy is designed to bring Britain into line with other countries such as the US and United Arab Emirates (UAE) and save the UK more than £234bn over what it calls the "lifetime of the average migrant".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c930xypxpqpo

The MN Reform cheerleaders tend to hate the sick and disabled, so they won't care if ill people are tossed out of the UK.

Without limits on earnings or insurance for health services/education costs?

Well, yes. It's probably in her best interest to get citizenship here if she intends to stay and her native country won't allow her to keep a foot in each door.

Yet another example of why Labour need to woman up and get to grips with this. I’d they don’t take visible action,Reform will and it will be a nightmare

This will win them the next election.

Ethnic minorities, take note and tighten your belts 😪

Nope, because he had to admit he can’t impose that on EU citizens with IDL because of his beloved Brexit agreement. 🤣🤣🤣

The man IS a charlatan, to the extent that you might as well put a photo of him next to the word in the dictionary and no further definition in words would be necessary. Of course people should continue to point this out.

What is he doing that’s constructive? He has no intention of constructing anything. Very amusing how people demand that others respond “constructively” to the economically illiterate nonsense spouted by Farage and his ilk when they won’t answer a single factual question with anything other than fantasy numbers, can provide no economic analysis of the impacts of their proposed policies (clue: their publicly declared proposals add up to huge cut taxes and simultaneous enormous increases in spending which are as likely to happen as the herd of Brexit unicorns finally arriving on our shores) and respond only with dog whistling xenophobic rants. How do you propose anybody has a constructive conversation with such people?

Don’t hold your breath!!

As in the UK, most places that I'm familiar with require you to demonstrate at the point of application that you're able to support yourself financially.

DH has permanent resident status in the country where we both used to live. It gives him access to exactly the same benefits and services as nationals of that country, and there are no ongoing requirements in relation to earnings etc. The only requirement is that he needs to go back every few years to maintain his status.

Apart from anything else £234bn over several decades is hardly a huge saving. We spend that in a year on the NHS.

He is going to scoop up a lot of innocent, quietly productive and contributing people. And he has smeared them all as being scroungers - no matter how much tax and NI they’ve paid, no matter how little they’ve taken from the state, no matter what their personal connections to the U.K. There are people who have been on ILR for decades - and he’s going to deport them because…? What, they’ve used the NHS after they’ve paid a surcharge for it and then paid into it for years and years?

I don’t believe for a second he’s “only going after the Boris wave.” He’s looking for cheap cheers from people who don’t actually know or care how immigration works in the U.K. They just want to be assured someone else is going to be punished for their entertainment.

What’s next, will they go after naturalised citizens for not being British enough? That will get the Tommy Robinson fans dancing in the streets.

He’s looking for cheap cheers from people who don’t actually know or care how immigration works in the U.K. They just want to be assured someone else is going to be punished for their entertainment.

This is so true. He is appealing to the crowd who don't have the faintest clue how the existing immigration rules work!

That could go on the side of a bus.

Ot definitely has that flavour, doesn't it.

How can we make this miniscule financial pay off sound more impressive? Let's make it one big number over an undefined long period of time, that'll do it.

That someone else could be my husband. Absolute fuckers. Not that they weren’t absolute fuckers already.

They have contributory benefits systems, except for those who are disabled. They have a version of IDL but it doesn’t confer an automatic right to benefits. Benefits and pensions should be based on the tax someone has paid into the system - a proper insurance-type system. Benefits exempting disability ones are time-limited so you can’t claim unemployment benefits as a career. That also means that the amounts paid out can be a percentage of salary so that they are a safety net for everyone and sufficient to cover baked-in living expenses in the event of temporary personal issues such as unemployment, so there is a proper social contract.

If you move to another country usually you are required to register for an ID card to show address and residency, have health insurance etc because you won’t have made the necessary contributions to use their welfare state. That is sensible. If, however, someone has worked somewhere for decades and paid tax then of course they can get IDL in every civilised country and aren’t expected to reapply for it every 5 years unless they become a citizen. And, separately, of course they can use services once they have made the required tax contributions as long-term residents. They also don’t allow people to move there with loads of dependents without a much higher salary ratio to support that, which has been a problem here - since the Brexit that Farage initiated (this wasn’t really a problem with EU immigrants, just those that the Brexit loons replaced them with).

There are of course variations and different systems but most European countries operate their welfare state on the basis of contributions, not nationality. They set requirements for permanent residency/ IDL - and we should be more stringent on this - but don’t tell people who’ve been settled there for decades that they’ll have to reapply every 5 years in perpetuity and may be kicked out if their income ever drops.

We also have to recognise that UK real-terms earnings are quite low now by EU standards and are lower than those in almost every US state, partly due to the damage Farage and his ilk have caused to the UK economy. We have a large cohort of supremely entitled pensioners bleeding the country dry so we unfortunately need immigration and Farage instigated most of our net contributor immigrants leaving and us therefore having to bring in large numbers who are a net cost. In order to attract net contributors we’ll have to significantly improve the UK’s living standards: that’s why people from developing countries want to move here and successful people from the UK are leaving for better quality of life and higher earnings elsewhere! So if he wants high salaries and immigrants who are a net benefit, trashing the economy further (as all of his proposals will do) is not the best idea…

@Lifeinthepit It's better to look sensibly at what he said. Probably more constructive bearing in mind people listen to Reform now. No point just saying he's a "charlatan".

Why should we look sensibly at things he says when he's never done a sensible thing in his life?

Eatlier this morning I read in the Guardian live feed that he wants to do this restrospectively too. So cancel the avenues to get naturalised now or in future and remove the rights of those that already got them. Make people re-apply every five years, including those already on an indefinitive right to leave.
So.... what will happen to the NHS? For starters. Most of the consultants we see around us are foreign or of clear foreign origin. What about if they go in mass? Will we have enough nationals to take their place? Mind boggling enough, the doctor strikes threads are full of people claiming them or their children cannot find a job as a doctor. Yet, on the other hand they tell us there are lots of vacancies....
Teachers, most here are Brittish, bit a few are foreigners, particularly language ones.
Around 1/3 of people in small shops around here are foreign or of foreign ascentry.
If he really wants to implement what he says.... this will change the every day rather drastically. I have no clue where he gets his savings. And if UK really can train enough people to cover. And fast enough. And if we will end up losing major skills and in an even worst situation. I do not trust Farage when it comes to this. I still remrmber the many millions the UK was to get gor the NHS after Brexit. Well..... where are those? How many new UK passport holders are being trained as we speak?

I am all for deporting those who refuse to integrate, have a dodgy agenda or are abusing the system.
But why taking it up with those who came, legally, worked and built a life here? Do we have to give them their taxes and pension contributions back if Farage chucks them out?

Maybe Farage is tired of his French girlfriend and wants to live his German ex-wife further away? Seems like a bit of a broad net just to go after the women in his life.

I'm not sure about your specific example but I would try to gain British citizenship before the next election to be on the safe side.

I hope you don't imagine for a nanosecond that future Reform Home Secretary Lee Anderson would hesitate before stripping British citizenship from anyone who has acquired it (by naturalisation or any other means) and is deemed to be "not being British enough" — based on, for example, skin colour. Shamima Begum was born in the UK and that didn't help her.

On the plus side, it would mean that once Reform were removed from office (which would probably be messy and might have to involve bypassing the ballot box, because fascists never go quietly), future Your Party Home Secretary Zarah Sultana would be able to strip Stephen Yaxlen-Lennon of his UK citizenship and tell him to fuck off back to Ireland. Apparently in his youth, Stephen was a Celtic supporter and very much into the Provos.

Being a bit more serious for a moment: I suspect this is just more kite-flying by Farage, to keep the base angry and foaming at the mouth. It's like when they had the anti-vaxxer at the Reform conference: "We don't endorse this guy, but if you like his ideas, well, we're your party, wink-wink".

What??

Shamima Begum is a very extreme example. Her skin colour was not the reason she was "not British enough" - she was stripped of her citizenship for the public good after leaving England to join the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria.

Also, she was born in the UK so already had British citizenship at the time.

These people are enraged about “double standards”, you see. They think there are “two tiers” for the rules applied to people and are outraged by this, unless of course they’d benefit from that: then its great! It’s different, you see…

Hypocrites.

"On the plus side, it would mean that once Reform were removed from office (which would probably be messy and might have to involve bypassing the ballot box, because fascists never go quietly"

It would be helpful if you could explain what you mean by this. Are you suggesting violence against people whose politics you don't agree with?

Again. Topical.

Who are you addressing you comments to out of interest? Who are "these people"? Are we lumping people together in Keir Starmer type approach?

Don’t worry. These Farage champions are allegedly really worried about terrorists coming to the UK and that justifies them supporting plans to deport thousands of long-term UK residents who’ve been law-abiding taxpayers here for decades, but they also disagree with the UK taking effective action to remove citizenship from a proven terrorist to stop her entering the UK again. There are no logical inconsistencies in their views at all, it all makes perfect sense (if you’re riding a unicorn).

I think my posts have been perfectly clear. I’m talking about flag waving Nigel Farage groupies.