Dilemma for Labour – recognise the value of immigrants but get their numbers down
How about a Low Immigration Commission, a “Scottish visa” to meet Scottish needs, and a safe and lawful route across the Channel?
It is no surprise that public concern about immigration is high in the UK because the numbers have been so high in recent years. Net immigration reached 906,000 in the year June 2022/23, then bounced down by 20% the next year to a “mere” 728,000 as a result of visa restrictions introduced by the previous Tory government.
68% of Brits think that numbers have been too high over the last ten years.
The Tories Reform and Labour recognise that voters want them to bring immigration down
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has promised a legal cap on immigration and Reform UK have called for a freeze on non-essential immigration, enforced with higher national insurance contributions for employers who employ immigrants.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has promised action to bring numbers down, but Labour isn’t talking about specific targets. Perhaps they should be. Immigration policy could be the straw that breaks Labour’s back at the next election if Labour seems to take voters’ concerns less seriously than the Tories or Reform. Labour is currently polling at 26% - neck and neck with the Tories at 26% – while Reform has climbed to 21%.
Brits wouldn’t expect a cap on numbers if the UK joined the EU or the single market, but neither are on offer.
Recent polls suggest that 53% of Brits want to rejoin the EU and would do so if there were a referendum, and that 57% of Brits would support joining the EU single market even if it meant accepting the free movement of persons. A majority of Brexit supporters now seem to support some sort of single market participation by the UK even if it means accepting the free movement of persons.
In the here and now, Labour needs to do something about the high numbers of new arrivals, or risk being outflanked by its political rivals
The case for a light touch on immigration control to boost the economy is easy to make, but so is the case for a sharp reduction when net immigration can be equal to the combined populations of Bradford and Oxford in a single year.
There is little hope of housebuilding keeping up with demand – let alone need - in such circumstances, and high immigration can put strains on house prices and rents, according to Oxford University’s Migration Observatory and independent economist Tejvan Pettinger.
Cutting immigration to zero or anything near it is not a real option – it would hinder recruitment to the NHS and social care, and hold back economic growth in sectors struggling to recruit enough workers in the UK. It would also damage the UK’s world class universities, which derive important funding from the international students who come to the UK for a year or two, then return home.
But business as usual is not a politically realistic option either, so UK employers recruiting abroad should not automatically trump concerns about high levels of immigration. That is why Keir Starmer has pledged a clampdown on foreign IT workers.
What is needed is a policy that would conspicuously cut back on visas for new arrivals but still issue enough to address serious labour shortages and allow UK universities to recruit good students from outside the UK.
A Low Immigration Commission
A first step could be a transparent and high-profile mechanism for balancing reduced immigration with the needs of the economy, but with a definite tilt towards reducing migrant numbers.
A Low Immigration Commission (LIC) could fit that bill.
The LIC would take centre-stage in the immigration debate. It would hear evidence in public, and publish reasons and evidence-based reports and recommendations. It would also advise on how best to reconcile reducing immigration with economic welfare. But reducing numbers would be a given. In each of its first four years the LIC would recommend a cap that would reduce visa numbers by at least 10%, and the Government would be bound by the annual caps.
The LIC would could also consider issues such as whether students and their dependents should be counted in the figures on net migration. Polling evidence from last year suggests only a minority of Brits think of students as “migrants”.
Should Edinburgh take responsibility for Scottish immigration?
Scotland has seen fewer immigrants, proportionately, than the rest of the UK, and the Scots are generally more positive about immigrants than their English neighbours. Polling evidence from 2022 suggests a plurality of Scots would like to see Scotland’s immigration policy devolved to the Scottish Government. Nevertheless, the 68% of Brits currently thinking immigration has been too high includes 69% of Scots.
There is a case for letting the Scottish Government take responsibility for issuing work visas for Scotland. That would suit many Scots and their political representatives – and not only in parties which advocate independence. The move could take about 50,000 a year off London’s political plate and allow the Scottish Government to tailor its own work visas to its own needs.
If immigration were to be devolved, the LIC’s remit would not apply to Scotland, which would issue its own work visas under new UK rules. These visas would allow residence and employment only in Scotland, though holders would be free to travel throughout the UK. Scotland’s position on immigration vis-à-vis the UK Government would be similar to that of Quebec vis-à-vis the Canadian Federal Government. It would follow that the UK Government would not normally issue visas for employment in Scotland, apart from the proposed new asylum work visas referred to below.
Labour likely to become increasingly vulnerable over small-boat asylum seekers
In 2023, 29,437 asylum seekers arrived in the UK in small boats. As of 1 December 2024, 33,684 people had crossed the Channel. Most Brits think more should be done to stop Illegal migration via small boats crossing the Channel. Labour is likely to become increasingly vulnerable on this score if its plans for defeating the criminal gangs are not seen to succeed. Even more vulnerable if EU countries manage to launch offshoring schemes for processing and/or settling asylum seekers - the majority of EU countries want EU policies to include offshoring, providing it complies with human rights law.
Part of an answer could lie in opening a safe and lawful route across the Channel.
Obviously this would be a politically risky way to tackle the small boats issue. But there is recent UK polling evidence showing public support for safe and lawful routes for up to 40,000 asylum seekers a year.
A legal route across the Channel would challenge the business plans of the people-traffickers by offering a safe and free of charge alternative to their costly and deadly package deals. Such a scheme could offer asylum/work visas plus priority asylum visas for, say 10,000 refugees per year. Asylum seekers want to work and this immediate right to work would reward those who chose a lawful route into the UK and reward the UK economy and taxpayer too.
Asylum seekers covered by the scheme would not boost overall migration because the their visas would be counted towards the overall cap for migrant numbers. The same could be done for migrants crossing the Channel in small boats.
Applications for combined visas could be made at a UK-staffed centre in France, which would provide advice and assistance, and a venue for interviews. Visas would be granted after a preliminary assessment, and only to refugees from countries whose nationals normally achieved a success rate of at least 80% first-time-round in asylum claims.
Visas granted would amount to provisional recognition of refugee status, and recipients could at once take up work in the UK while consideration of their applications for refugee status continued. The visas of those whose applications ultimately failed would be withdrawn. The present writer has written about this in greater detail recently in Byline Times.
There are no magic bullets on the issues of legal and illegal immigration, but the Labour Government needs policies that are distinctive and credible, and it needs them sooner rather than later.
Derrick Wyatt is a retired law professor and legal adviser who writes about policy choices in the UK and Europe