Immigration has been the most polarising issue of our age. Yet it was settlement policy - the immigration of the recent past – that caused the first public rifts in Andy Burnham’s government. The prime minister inherited a stand-off: how far was it fair to change the rules for those who had come to Britain, in record numbers, over the past five years?
No flagship government policy for decades has changed so much after consultation. Cue fierce political arguments about why. Right-wing opposition parties depicted home secretary Shabana Mahmood as the only Labour voice willing to get a grip – before being forced to back down by soft-headed pro-migration colleagues. The centre-left critique was that the government had picked a damaging fight with its own side when it would never be able to satisfy hardline demands to send the so-called ‘Boriswave’ home.
Beyond the Westminster politics, the government’s choices affect more than a million people. There are winners and losers. The highly paid gain the most: those earning more than £125,000 can get permanent status in just three years. Teachers and NHS workers keep the five-year rules, as do Hong Kongers on the BNO visa. Trade unions won the argument to ditch the home secretary’s proposal to make care workers wait 15 years by mobilising tens of thousands of those affected to petition for major changes.
Other workers face extra visa costs as they wait to settle in ten years rather than five. Late policy changes did, however, reduce the risk of mass remigration by stealth – so 150,000 people outside the care sector can renew their visas to 2035 without facing the higher 2030 salary thresholds for new arrivals.
Those seeking to settle will need a significantly higher standard of English. The intention is to unlock the economic and social benefits of greater fluency. Without a significant push on language strategy, reversing cuts to English classes, the practical outcome may be to strand many people in limbo, instead. Not letting serious criminals settle is popular – but the performative proposal that any police caution would prevent settlement forever is unfair and unworkable.
By far the biggest losers from this Labour government’s choices are recently recognised refugees. The prime minister’s instinct to bridge his cabinet divide was to side with Angela Rayner over care workers, but to back his home secretary’s bid to send tough messages to refugees, with settlement waits of 20 or 30 years.
What nobody inside or outside government anticipated was that Burnham’s government would propose much harsher settlement terms, for those already granted refugee status, than Keir Starmer’s government did. As recently as March, the Commons was told that new temporary refugee protection – reviewed every 30 months, with a baseline 20-year wait for settlement – would apply to new claimants, while those in the system already could settle in five years. A major policy change – tucked away as footnote 14 on page 32 of the government’s formal response – will now put everybody without permanent status in that new temporary system.
The government wants a ‘firm but fair’ message to promote its new safe and legal routes and deter irregular ones. Yet that logic would suggest a focus on future applicants, as the changes cannot deter past arrivals now. It would be a fairer argument once substantial and accessible safe routes are up and running.
Strangely, the Home Office publicly denied there was any change of policy when the Refugee Council challenged this. So maybe the March 2026 policy will be kept, after all. This u-turn via footnote is vulnerable to legal challenge and backbench pressure. Up to 200,000 refugees would wait much longer. Were the cabinet even aware of this dramatic change for so many people?
On the right, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch did reverse a previous u-turn herself. Last year she ditched an Opposition Bill to strip people with ILR of their permanent status. "We have a principle. We don’t believe in making things retrospective," she said. Yet Badenoch now says the Conservatives will review and reverse ILR grants retrospectively, after all. Reform went further, even pledging to revoke grants of citizenship, pulled further right by Restore's campaigns to deport millions.
US president Donald Trump’s crushing mid-term losses to the Democrats offer a cautionary tale. The economic consequences of his foreign policy misadventures hurt Trump. Most Americans think he went too far on immigration, too. Voters wanted control, not the violence, cruelty and chaos of his indiscriminate mass deportations. The increasingly overt racism of the White House appeals to the Trump base – but saw Latino voters swing heavily against Trump, breaking up his 2024 coalition. Democrat candidates making unlikely gains in Texas and South Carolina found a language of control, compassion and contribution, supporting border security with routes to citizenship.
Burnham's instinct is to try to balance that language, too. This settlement compromise sought to fuse control and contribution – but it needs more policy work not to fail compassion and cohesion tests, too.
