George Thomas

Labour's Immigration Crackdown Has a New Border. Its Own Backbenches. In March, Shabana Mahmood went to Copenhagen to learn how Denmark brought immigration under control. She returned with proposals to make permanent settlement harder, warning that allowing lower-paid migrants and their dependants to settle after five years could cost taxpayers £10 billion over their lifetimes. Today, after months of resistance from Labour's Left, her government announced a substantial retreat. The lesson from Denmark survived everything except the Labour Party. More than 100 Labour MPs threatened rebellion. Angela Rayner denounced the proposals as unfair and un-British. Trade unions mobilised against them. Unison now celebrates having forced concessions. And Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister supposedly determined to restore public confidence in immigration control, has endorsed the revised policy. The Home Secretary has discovered that the hardest border to cross in British politics runs through her own party. The figures expose the scale of the retreat. Around 300,000 foreign care workers and dependants will retain a five-year route to indefinite leave to remain, provided they meet the conditions. Of the estimated 1.9 million migrants in the relevant settlement cohort, approximately 1.4 million could still qualify after five years. Mahmood's original proposals imposed a fifteen-year wait on care workers. Her government has restored the shorter route for most, while promising tougher conditions elsewhere. The financial question is uncomfortable. In March, Mahmood cited a £10 billion lifetime fiscal cost associated with settlement among lower-paid care workers and dependants. Now the Government has made a major concession without publishing a full assessment of its financial consequences. Ministers insist the changes will still save billions. Perhaps they will. But a government that invokes enormous costs to justify reform owes taxpayers an equally clear explanation when it retreats. Burnham's role deserves scrutiny. He wants a National Care Service, yet his government has preserved a settlement route that sustains Britain's dependence on overseas care recruitment. Where is the plan to train British workers, improve pay, retain experienced staff and reduce that dependence? Importing labour became the convenient answer to problems successive governments refused to solve. Burnham appears determined to preserve that convenience while promising reform. There is another disturbing concession. Care workers who failed to meet their original visa conditions will have another opportunity to qualify through a new five-year visa. Some were victims of dishonest employers. Others may have knowingly abused the system. The Home Office must explain how it will distinguish between them. Otherwise, the message risks becoming familiar: breach the conditions, wait long enough, and another route may appear. The Conservatives bear responsibility for opening the floodgates under Boris Johnson. Labour now bears responsibility for deciding whether the consequences become permanent. Burnham cannot blame his predecessors indefinitely while allowing his backbenchers and political allies to determine which reforms survive. Denmark spent two decades building political agreement around immigration control. Britain cannot sustain agreement within one governing party. Mahmood can announce restrictions, but every serious attempt to enforce them must survive Labour's internal opposition. Today demonstrated how readily that opposition can extract concessions. Burnham is Prime Minister. The authority is his, and so is the responsibility. If his government cannot withstand pressure from its own MPs when immigration reform becomes difficult, the public has every reason to question its promises. Britain's immigration policy is being negotiated around Labour's internal divisions while the country waits for the control it was promised.