Tuesday 20
May 2025
Dear Naz
Since the Brexit debate began, a succession of politicians have
called my (German) family members and me “citizens of nowhere”, “deracinated
cosmopolitans”, "queue-jumpers", and “whingers”. Now Keir Starmer has
added “strangers” whose presence here is somehow “squalid”.
But it is not just the offensive language that I object to in Keir Starmer's
remarks. The factual claims he makes are out of order too.
"Control"
We have control of our borders and have never had “open
borders”– apart from our border with the EU in Ireland, and we are not (I
sincerely hope) going to start controlling that. More to the point, the entry
of legal migrants (the vast majority of migrants and the subject of Starmer’s
remarks) is now entirely under government control. The question – which ought
to be the subject of sober debate and reflection – is what the UK should do
with this control.
"Undercutting pay"
The “addicted to importing cheap labour” claim is simply
nonsense. Migrants in the UK earn, on average, more than non-migrants. When my
firm hired someone from India, we paid him the same as our UK workers and had
to pay additional money to the Home Office as a penalty for having hired a
migrant. Migrants are hired because they have the skills needed here, not
because they are cheaper.
"Public services"
Migrants are disproportionally represented as providers of
public services and (given their demographic profile) disproportionally
unrepresented as consumers of public services. So the claim that migrants put
“pressure” on public services that cutting their numbers will somehow “release”
is, again, manifestly nonsensical.
And these insults and false factual claims are being marshalled
to justify moves to lower net migration – something the government could
achieve, without fanfare or emotive language, by simply issuing fewer visas
each year.
Personally I think this is a mistake, and something that will
cause significant economic damage and actually increase pressure on our public
services, but what I really object to is Keir Starmer’s proposal to increase
the time it takes to acquire settled status from five years to ten and “end
automatic settlement and citizenship for anyone living here for five years”.
First of all this is, once again, factually incorrect. The
default wait before people can apply for settled status is already ten years –
though various different categories of people can apply after two, three, or
five years. There are many other conditions and hurdles however; you have to
wait at least a year after gaining settlement before you can apply for
naturalization; and the Home Office can take months or even years to decide
settlement or naturalization applications. So it can often already take the
best part of a decade (or longer) before a migrant to the UK can actually
become a UK citizen, even under current rules. Increasing the qualifying period
for settlement to ten years could make the citizenship journey more like
fifteen in practice. But all this aside, there is absolutely nothing
“automatic” about any of this. When my wife enquired about the progress of her
citizenship application[1] after the promised six months had elapsed and had
(in spite of other promises that she would) heard nothing after nineteen
months, the Home Office replied “As I am sure you are aware, naturalization is
not an automatic process”.
Secondly, making it more difficult for migrants to obtain
settlement and/or citizenship will do nothing to deter would be immigrants.
Since the Home Office famously cannot understand or follow its own rules (and
is forever losing court cases as a result) and (as this new announcement
illustrates) our politicians and journalists often do not understand the rules
either, it seems improbable that potential migrants will appreciate these rules
as they consider whether to come here. Moreover, Keir Starmer explicitly states
that one of his aims is greater integration. This is something I fully support,
but surely he can see that keeping people in limbo for a decade or more is
entirely counterproductive if he wants them to feel part of British society.
I would implore you to vote against this measure when it is put
before you in Parliament.
Kind regards
Mike
---
Michael A Ward (Dr)
[1] Something you kindly helped us with.
