Starmer faces criticism over immigration plans

The Prime Minister faces criticism from multiple quarters after unveiling his Government’s plan to cut net migration on Monday.

The plans, which are expected to reduce the number of people coming to the UK by up to 100,000 per year, include reforming work and study visas and requiring a higher level of English across all immigration routes.

But Monday’s proposals sparked concern from employers, particularly in the care sector, following the announcement that care worker visas would be scrapped.

GMB national officer Will Dalton said the decision would be “potentially catastrophic” as the care sector was “utterly reliant on migrant workers” and still had more than 130,000 vacancies across the country.

The Home Office believes there are 40,000 potential members of staff originally brought over by “rogue” providers who could work in the sector while UK staff are trained up.

More broadly, CBI chief executive Rain Newton-Smith warned that labour shortages “can’t be solved by training alone” in the context of a shrinking workforce and an ageing population.

She also cautioned that changes that “risk making the UK a less attractive place to study” or increased costs for universities “will have knock-on impacts for the competitive strength of UK higher education”.

In the Commons, Sir Keir Starmer’s announcement has also drawn attacks from across the political spectrum.

Labour backbenchers criticised the language Sir Keir used to announce the plans, particularly his claim that Britain could become an “island of strangers” without reform of the immigration system.

Sheffield Hallam MP Olivia Blake suggested the phrase could “risk legitimising the same far-right violence we saw in last year’s summer riots”, while former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who lost the Labour whip last year, accused Sir Keir of “reflecting the language” of Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech in the 1960s.

Skills minister Baroness Jacqui Smith rejected the comparison, telling BBC Newsnight it was “wrong”.

Meanwhile, other parties argued the Prime Minister’s proposals did not go far enough.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the Immigration White Paper was “so weak that it barely scratches the surface” as he pushed for a “binding annual cap on migration” and disapplying the Human Rights Act from immigration law.

Nigel Farage, whose Reform UK has focused heavily on immigration in its campaigns, said the Government “will not do what it takes to control our borders”.

The Liberal Democrats offered some qualified support, with the party’s home affairs spokeswoman Lisa Smart saying it was “right that the Government is taking steps to fix our broken immigration system”.

But she added that the proposals “must be coupled with a clear plan to make it easier to recruit British workers to fill vacancies instead”.