Keir Starmer Unveils Tough Immigration Reforms Including Longer Residency Requirements and Enhanced Control Measures
Keir Starmer Unveils Tough Immigration Reforms Including Longer Residency Requirements and Enhanced Control Measures
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a series of stringent new immigration policies on Monday, including doubling the residency requirement for migrants seeking UK citizenship from five to ten years. The measures aim to significantly reduce immigration over the next five years. Speaking at a press conference from Downing Street ahead of the Labour Party government’s upcoming Immigration White Paper being presented to Parliament, Starmer attributed the current immigration challenges to the previous Conservative government, describing it as an “open borders experiment” that left a “mess.”
He emphasized that his administration’s reforms will establish an immigration system that is “controlled, selective, and fair.”
“Make no mistake, this plan means migration will fall. That is a promise,” Starmer declared.
He added that all aspects of the immigration process—including work, family, and study visas—will be tightened to enhance control and ensure adherence to fair rules, as outlined in the White Paper.
The new policy will eliminate the existing automatic pathway to settlement and citizenship for individuals, including those from India, who have lived in the UK for five years. Instead, migrants will be required to spend ten years in the country before they can apply for permanent residency, unless they can demonstrate a “real and lasting contribution to the economy and society.”
The reforms will prioritize “high-skilled and high-contributing” individuals—such as nurses, doctors, engineers, and AI experts—by providing them with expedited processing.
Language requirements will also be strengthened across all immigration routes to ensure a higher standard of English proficiency. For the first time, this requirement will extend to all adult dependents of migrants, requiring them to demonstrate basic English skills. This measure aims to promote better integration into local communities, improve employment prospects, and reduce exploitation and abuse, according to Downing Street.
The full details of the White Paper, including plans to curb overseas care worker numbers, will be presented by UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in the House of Commons. The reforms are expected to include measures to tighten enforcement and eliminate “backdoor” routes to settlement, as well as crackdowns on abuse of the system.
Downing Street highlighted the strain on public services, rising housing costs, and the reliance of employers on cheap overseas labor as issues exacerbated by previous policies. The government pointed out that in certain sectors, such as engineering, apprenticeships have nearly halved while work visa numbers have doubled, with communities bearing the brunt of these changes.
While Starmer faced pressure to reduce migrant numbers amid a recent surge in anti-immigration sentiment from the Reform Party, he resisted setting an annual cap on immigration. “I don’t think it is sensible to put a hard-edged cap on it. That has been done in one form or another for the best part of 10 years by different prime ministers. The only thing that links those prime ministers and the various caps or quotas or limits they put in place is every single one of them failed,” he stated.
