(Kemi Badenoch. Photo Credit: Punch News)
Leader of the UK Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has said immigrants who arrive in Britain on temporary work visas should not automatically be allowed to remain in the country permanently, urging the Labour government to retain its proposed 10-year qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain.
Badenoch made the remarks in a post shared on social media on Monday while releasing a letter addressed to the UK’s Home Secretary.
In the post, she criticised calls by some Labour lawmakers for the government to soften its planned immigration reforms, arguing that people who come to Britain on temporary work visas should not automatically be able to stay forever.
She said the Labour government had been right to make that harder, and expressed concern that some of its own MPs now want a reversal, stating that the Conservatives would back Labour’s original plan to help get it through Parliament.
The letter, jointly signed by Badenoch and the Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, expressed concern over reports that the Labour government was considering exempting around two million migrants who entered the United Kingdom on work visas between 2021 and the present from the proposed extension of the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain.
The Conservative leader described such a move as a grave mistake, insisting that Britain had previously experienced the consequences of allowing migrants to obtain permanent settlement too quickly, noting that Conservatives had learned at their own cost that five years was too short a time to obtain indefinite right to remain in the UK.
She argued that many migrants currently working in low-paid and low-skilled jobs could be replaced by economically inactive British citizens if appropriate opportunities were created, noting that many of these immigrants were working in low-wage, low-skilled jobs that could be done by some of the nine million economically inactive British citizens.
According to Badenoch, migrants who fail to make what she described as a significant economic contribution over a decade should return to their home countries once their temporary work visas expire, adding that individuals not making a significant economic contribution over a ten-year period should not be allowed to stay indefinitely, and that those not working, or working in low-paid jobs, should be required to go home at the end of their temporary work visa.
The Conservative leader also argued that granting indefinite leave to remain after only five years would place additional pressure on the UK’s welfare system, since successful applicants become entitled to social benefits and can subsequently apply for British citizenship.
She noted that receiving indefinite leave to remain currently carries full entitlement to benefits, and that even if this were restricted for an additional qualification period as some have called for, the migrants concerned would still become eligible for British citizenship a year after receiving it, making it very difficult to restrict benefits for citizens.
She further noted that there was currently no provision in the Immigration and Asylum Bill or existing legislation that would allow the government to alter welfare entitlements for people granted indefinite leave to remain.
Badenoch maintained that extending the qualifying period from five years to 10 years would not amount to a retrospective change, since temporary work visas do not guarantee permanent settlement.
She argued that the government is entitled to decide at any time the rules on indefinite rights of settlement, including for those already in the country, stressing that no one who has come on a temporary work visa should have the automatic right to stay forever, and that changing the rules to extend the qualification period and add conditions for new applications does not constitute a retrospective change.
In the letter, Badenoch also offered the Conservative Party’s support if Labour decides to proceed with its original proposal without amendments, saying that if the proposals set out the previous autumn were tabled in undiluted form, either in the Immigration Rules or as part of the Immigration and Asylum Bill, the Conservatives would support them.
She added that while a Conservative government would go further, the party was making this offer to cooperate in the national interest on what she described as a time-sensitive matter, stating that the government’s decision would ultimately show whether Labour was genuinely committed to controlling immigration and strengthening border controls.
The letter was also copied to Andy Burnham, whom Badenoch referred to as the anticipated incoming Prime Minister, as political debate over the future direction of the UK’s immigration policy continues.
