THIS conference season has seen a blizzard of policy announcements as the parties set out their stalls on how they intend to tackle (or not) the crises of out-of-control immigration and chaos in the asylum system. We at Migration Watch have watched and listened closely. Here’s a brief summary of the Labour, Conservative and Reform proposals.
Labour Party
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood promised to stop small-boat crossings, crack down on smuggling gangs (again), and end hotel use for those awaiting the outcome of asylum applications. The focus was, in the main, illegal migration. She would extend the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) for those who have arrived on visas from five to ten years and require applicants to be working, paying taxes, be able to speak English and have clean criminal records.
Conservative Party
Chris Philp, Shadow Home Secretary, unveiled the Borders Plan. This includes leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, a ban on asylum claims by people who have entered the UK without permission, or those who make a claim at the point of being required to leave having been here for prolonged periods, deport illegal small boat arrivals to safe countries, abolish immigration tribunals and legal aid for those entering, deport foreign criminals and establish a Removals Force to deport 150,000 people per year, including those already in the UK illegally and future illegal arrivals and foreign nationals convicted of serious offences.
Reform UK
Reform UK’s plan, announced by Nigel Farage, would scrap indefinite leave to remain. Migrants would instead have five-year work visas with higher salary requirements and no welfare access; existing ILR holders would reapply and would be able to apply for British citizenship seven years following granting of ILR. Before the conference Reform pledged to detain illegal small-boat arrivals, leave the ECHR, repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act and deport 600,000 migrants with no right to be here over five years, focusing on the ‘Boriswave’.
Migration Watch view
We have no expectation that the Liberal Democrats, the Greens or ‘Your Party’ will embrace the policies needed to control and reduce immigration. While Rupert Lowe (Restore Britain) and Ben Habib (Advance UK) both advocate policies which resonate with many people, according to the polls, they are unlikely to be involved in forming the next government.
What Reform and the Conservatives had to say about illegal immigration and asylum was welcome, if expected. However, we were disappointed that their focus was confined largely to this aspect of the immigration problem, with scant attention given to overall immigration, which is more than 20 times the number who have crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year.
There was no mention of the fact that net migration added more than 2.5million to our population in the five years to mid-2024, or that our population grew by 755,000 in the year to mid-2024 – 98 per cent of that increase due to immigration – with every local authority in England bar one seeing growth. The Labour Party, for its part, also largely avoided addressing this wider issue.
Like the majority of the British public, we want illegal immigration brought to an end, but we also want to hear how the parties propose to deal with the catastrophic levels of legal migration that are driving such profound demographic change – levels which could lead to the white British population becoming a minority by the early 2060s. It was precisely this scenario that prompted Sir Keir Starmer to warn of the risk of Britain becoming an ‘island of strangers’. What a pity that the courage he showed in May appears since to have deserted him.
Migration Watch UK, and the millions who share our concerns, now want to hear from the parties most likely to form or join the next government how they intend to tackle this existential challenge. We would be pleased to share our proposals for how this can be achieved.
