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

No the main ongoing obligation on the State is the pension obligation, both state and public. That will break us. The existing public worker pensions can't be reduced by the government as they are contractual. The pensions have been growing for decades..long before "austerity" or Brexit. The borrowing to cover the interest repayments are eye watering. So it's the state pension that will go or be decreased as that is the one that's in government control and that can be changed.

I appreciate not everyone is able to get dual nationality but for those who can, it seems a more logical choice than the expense, effort & uncertainty of renewing a work visa every 5 years.

Up to them of course and hopefully it will never be necessary anyway because this is all hypothetical at the moment. I made the comment because it’s what I would do in that situation if I could. Everyone’s different though.

So why not deport pensioners?

The civil service already earns below market rates because their pension package is meant to make up for their low pay. Their pensions have already been changed - they are no longer the great prizes they used to be.

Could they be cut? Sure - but the way to improve the country is through growth, not finding scapegoats to performantively punish. You’ve still not explained why Farage’s promise to split up families is actually a good thing. He’s just being cruel for the sake of it.

I'm wondering how it's going to work when Reform comes to build the pre-deportation camps that will be needed for the 600,000 or 800,000 or however many people they are planning to kick out.

They will apparently be held in "rudimentary prisons" (those are actually the words of wannabe Conservative leader Robert Jenrick, but I think we can safely assume that Reform will not be building luxury holiday camps, and in any case Jenrick will very likely be a senior member of Reform before 2029).

The problem is that when you imprison several tens of thousands of people who have been convicted of no crime, they tend to object a bit. And they tend to try to get away. That's reasonably easy to prevent in a prison with 15-feet high walls, but not so much on a former RAF base with just a fence around it.

So, machine guns on guard towers it is then! Followers of Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins will be queuing up to staff them. Doubtless there will be robust protocols in place to take stern disciplinary action (perhaps even up to the point of a final written warning, wink wink) for any machine gunner who shoots a prisoner who hadn't actually crossed the inner trip wire.

It's all going to be a barrel of laughs, isn't it?

I think it would be a no brainer for those who are able to have dual citizenship. But so many people don't have that choice.

My DH does now have British nationality, but he had to give up his original nationality in order to get it, because the country of his birth did not allow dual citizenship. It is actually a really difficult decision to give up your original nationality and it's incredibly weird to have to get a visa to visit the country where you were born, so I completely understand why many people choose not to do it.

The solution would be to offer a payrise to public sector workers in return for a rejig of their pensions. Then the vast future liability can start being dealt with.

Reform's ideas on extending the IDL qualification period is good in that it means a reduction in benefits payments for a significant amount of people. But it's probably not going to solve our main issue or the country from bankruptcy. Yes growth would be good but Rachel Reeves won't be the Chancellor who enables it. She's a negative effect unfortunately.

Which ones?

How much will the reduction in benefits be? What is a significant amount of people?

I agree that yes, it seems a no brainer for those able to get dual citizenship. For those potentially having to give up their original nationality to get it, a much harder choice. I would never give up my British nationality but I wouldn’t personally have any issues with dual nationality if I wanted to live in another country.

The more I think about it the more I think this Reform policy will never actually happen. It would be a crazy thing to apply retrospectively to people who have already gained indefinite leave to remain.

I know Reform will probably never get elected anyway. But even if they did, surely this policy would get watered down so the 5 year work visa route would replace ILR only for those people who had not yet been granted ILR.

Why not all of them.

Which ones do you suggest?

I don't suggest any pensioners should be deported. That was your question?

You suggested that pensions are the UK's biggest problem and is bankrupting it. So instead of deporting immigrants, I suggested to deport pensioners.

Not seriously obviously, it's just as ridiculous as Farage's new policy.

Oh right

But I don't think Reform are arguing that? It's not retrospective. It's for people who have not yet got ILR. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's what I understand is the policy. So that's the 800,000 coming up for eligibility next year.

You are wrong, Farage did say it would be applied retrospectively.

It was British citizenship that he said wouldn’t be affected once people have already got it

@Lifeinthepit the 800,000 coming up would be among the ones to get their ILR revoked because while they will get it under Labour, Farage was saying they would override it if Reform get in at the next election.

Do you realise how many doctors work in the UK on the equivalent to the old tier 2 visa or with indefinite leaver to remain? Something tells me you don't.

🥱🥱🥱 Everyone can read the actual posts and that your “responses” were to questions that were not asked, and were about what it would have been like if your entire family had decided to move to your other parent’s country together, not about what it would have been like if one of your parents was forcibly deported and the rest of the family had to remain in the UK - which Farage has admitted will be the effect of his policies on many families.

You then started blathering on pretending I’d asked you if you thought you might have had chosen to raise you together in your other parents’ country instead of here, which is completely irrelevant to the thread and wasn’t asked at any point except, it seems, by some voices inside your head as part of your imaginary conversations which you keep trying to drag others into. No thank you.

No that’s not what it means. There will still be routes to citizenship.

Yes, you’re wrong. He stated IDR will be removed entirely including from those who already have it.

He also stated that those who have been here for decades and already have IDR will not only have it removed and be forced to apply for a new visa every 5 years in perpetuity if they do not become UK citizens, but will also not be allowed any access to benefits (if, for example, they might become unemployed for a short period having lived here and paid tax for many decades) and would be deported for failing to meet the required income threshold (they are kicking a figure of £60k around).

Oh, and that if they manage to renew their visas every 5 years until they retire, they then won’t get a state pension either even if they’ve worked and paid tax in the UK throughout their working lives, because they aren’t UK citizens.

This has all been explained numerous times in the thread already as well as in transcripts of his speech and interviews but, as we’ve established, you don’t actually read any of the information or posts before writing nonsense posts.

I wonder if other countries will suddenly decide to reciprocate this agreement with British immigrants who live there?
Can imagine the NHS would be totally overwhelmed with thousands of pensioners fresh from Benidorm.

Idiotic and would never get through parliament.

My wife is German. She's lived here since 2017. We have a child together. She's very scared by the whole thing. It's a fucking shame how terrifying this is for people with families who have lived here a long time and who pays their taxes.

Luckily it's never going to happen because he just comes out with bs to get people to vote for him and to embolden idiots.

You mean in the 4 months they’ve been in charge.
Labour hasn’t worked out how to run the country after 14 months and they’ve supposedly done it before.

I also don’t think it would ever happen for various reasons.

But I don’t understand why your wife would be very scared seeing as being from Germany she could get dual citizenship if that anxious & anyway, this “plan” is more aimed at non EU nationals.

EU nationals would be protected under Brexit agreements.