Labour’s landslide victory in July 2024 was not won with an agenda of aggressive immigration restrictions and divisive rhetoric, but with a promise to improve working and living conditions for all. That’s what resonated with voters.
Yet less than two years into power, Keir Starmer’s government has allowed its ambitious policy programme to be hijacked, buried under Reform UK’s immigration-obsessed rhetoric. Nigel Farage sits in the interviewer’s chair, dictating the parameters of British political debate, while the Labour leadership scrambles to respond with a copycat version of his exclusionary vision.
Right-wing politicians and influencers build moral panics around immigration because their careers thrive off division. The number of migrant people coming to the UK is far smaller, and their contribution to our society far greater, than they would have us believe.
The latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics show that while net migration has fallen to the lowest level since 2021 (excluding the border closures of the Covid-19 pandemic), half the public believes net migration has increased – and expects it to go up again next year. As think tank British Future laid bare in a new report, when it comes to migration, there is a staggering chasm between public perception and reality.
The number of Skilled Worker visas issued to foreign nationals coming to work in the UK is at its lowest level since 2021, according to analysis conducted by our charity, the Work Rights Centre, earlier this year. That’s significantly fewer care workers, nurses, therapists, scientists, education professionals, and skilled tradespeople – and an impending ‘car crash’ for the hospitals, care homes, and dentists’ surgeries that depend on them.
Starmer’s government’s hyper-focus on immigration has not only ignored these realities, but has also led to a frenzied suite of policies that actively, and needlessly, hurt migrant communities, families, and the businesses and services that depend on them.
In a direct imitation of Reform’s anti-migrant rhetoric, home secretary Shabana Mahmood is trying to push through the most radical changes to settlement and refugee rights in decades. Her ‘Earned Settlement’ proposals would double the waiting period before which most migrants can apply for permanent settlement in the UK from five to ten years, and extend it to up to 30 years for some groups. These changes would be applied retrospectively to people already in the UK.
Countless experts have warned against these proposals. Our team at the Work Rights Centre warned that tying migrants to employers for decades is a recipe for labour exploitation. Dr Madeline Sumption, the director of the Oxford Migration Observatory, pointed to the increased risk of poverty for children with migrant parents, unpaid carers, and those with disabilities.
Beyond the human cost, there is an evident risk to businesses and public services. Matthew Percival, a director at the Confederation of Business Industry, warned that skilled workers already in the UK, whose plans to achieve settled status would suddenly be delayed by years, may emigrate and leave behind hard-to-fill vacancies. Conversely, if bona fide businesses face higher costs to manage the remaining migrant workforce, the consequence may be reduced investment.
There has been a revolt against these ‘Earned Settlement’ plans from within Starmer’s own party. A cross-party coalition of over 70 MPs and lords joined forces with Unison and charities to send an open letter to the home secretary, urging her government to keep its promises to migrant workers. This was followed by 100 MPs signing an additional private letter in condemnation of the retrospective changes. These plans are incredibly unpopular.
The bitter irony is that while ministers spend their energy defending cruel and unnecessary immigration policies, the cracks in Labour’s flagship achievements are widening.
Consider the Employment Rights Act 2025. On paper, it introduces life-changing protections for workers: day-one access to statutory sick pay, paternity leave and unpaid parental leave; greater protection from harassment at work; and new whistleblowing protections, to name just a few. But without introducing a single worker status – which would offer the same rights for all people doing work for an employer, whether or not they are classed as an ‘employee’ – the act leaves an open goal for businesses to dodge these new entitlements by simply misclassifying their workers as self-employed.
Similarly, our crumbling Employment Tribunal system is woefully unprepared to cope with the predicted 18% increase in cases the new legislation is predicted to create. Our latest research found that a record-high backlog has left workers waiting up to four years to have their case heard. Rights on paper are merely a token gesture if the state lacks the structural capacity to enforce them.
As a charity, we have no political favourites. We engage with the policies and political projects that affect our clients. It’s incredibly disappointing, therefore, to see Greater Manchester mayor and PM-hopeful Andy Burnham suggest he would continue to follow Reform’s playbook, by backing Mahmood’s punishing immigration agenda. It would be bitterly disheartening to see this become a feature of his and any other leadership candidates’ programmes.
Labour does not need to out-Reform Reform on immigration. It cannot win that race, and trying to do so only harms migrant communities while making life harder for British businesses trying to stay afloat in an uncertain economic climate.
We need Labour to take back control of the conversation, quit the race to the bottom on immigration, and fill in the cracks that could undo its good work on workers’ rights. If Labour wants to secure its legacy, the formula is simple: on immigration, do less. On enforcing workers' rights, do significantly more.
