Labour and the Conservatives have been left reeling from Reform UK’s rampant success at the local elections.
And it seems both have taken a clear message from the insurgent party’s signature attitude towards migration.
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Polls regularly show the issue is a top concern for voters. While stopping the boats driving illegal migration is proving as difficult for Labour as it was for the Tories – the government has the levers to control legal migration much more directly.
This week, Sir Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have decided it’s time to pull them, with their long-awaited white paper due to be published on Monday. But the trade offs involved in reforming the system certainly aren’t without controversy.
Speaking to Sky’s Sir Trevor Phillips to sell her plans to reduce visa numbers, the home secretary repeatedly talked about “restoring control”.
It’s no coincidence to hear her invoking the language of Brexit – highlighting the fact it was Boris Johnson who presided over the spiralling increase in migration after the vote to leave the European Union – and attempting to court the voters who believed doing so would close the borders to the influx of overseas workers.
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“It’s about restoring control and order,” she said. “It’s about preventing this chaotic system where we had overseas recruitment soar while training in the UK was cut…
“That is a broken system. So that is what we need to change.”
The home office plan is to link the reduction in overseas workers with government efforts to get the economically inactive back into work. In future, only those with degree-level qualifications will be eligible for skilled worker visas.
Employers who want to employ lower-skilled workers, on a temporary basis, will have to demonstrate they are training and recruiting UK workers as well.
The home secretary says 180 occupations will be removed from the shortage list, with the shortfall filled by training schemes to fill the gaps with home-grown workers. Questions abound about how training schemes will marry up with immediate business needs now.
But it’s the closure of the specific care worker visa which is leading to the loudest alarm bells thus far.
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Many in the sector are desperately worried about pre-existing staffing shortfalls, unconvinced by government advice to recruit from a pool of 10,000 workers already in the UK on care visas.
Professor Martin Green, of Care England, said: “This is a crushing blow to an already fragile sector. The government is kicking us while we’re already down.”
But the government is determined to try and wean the economy off its dependence on overseas labour.
The increase in net migration is staggering. Before Brexit, the highest figure was 329,000, in the year up to June 2015.
But by June 2023, the annual number had soared to 906,000. While last year that figure fell to 728,000, following restrictions on dependents on care and student visas – the number is still strikingly high.
Kemi Badenoch’s Tories have decided there’s no room for evasion and have regularly issued dramatic apologies for the decisions of the past.
“The last government,” said Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp on Sunday, as if he had no part of it, “made some very serious mistakes with immigration. They allowed it to be far, far too high…that was a huge mistake.”
But Mr Philp is characteristically full of criticism of Labour’s “failure” on the “radical reforms” needed.
He wants to see parliament voting for an annual cap on numbers, although hasn’t specified what that would be.
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Ms Cooper says migration targets have no credibility after years of Tory failures – but also acknowledged that she wants the numbers to fall “substantially” and “significantly” below 500,000.
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She claims the skilled worker visa changes will lead to 50,000 fewer visas being issued this year alone – a small proportion of that overall too, but a quick result all the same.
Will it be enough?
Reform UK are clearly delighted to be directing the government’s policy agenda.
Deputy leader Richard Tice told Sir Trevor “the Labour Party is talking the talk. Will they actually walk the walk? I actually think the people are voting for us because they know that we mean it.”
But the policy is a risk.
Assuaging voters’ concerns on migration could mean taking a serious hit to an already anaemic economy and struggling care sector. Not to mention the longer-term political decision to move the party firmly to the right.
