Labour’s Immigration White Paper

UK immigration policy is frequently little more than grandstanding performance art with the goal of consolidating power (also known as the Border Spectacle). This is an increasingly dominant approach in immigration policy which consciously sensationalises geographic border crossing to distract from domestic failings.

Under the recent Conservative Government, we had the worst of both worlds, they ‘talked tough’ on immigration, relishing in the use of racist, dehumanising anti-immigrant rhetoric, whilst utterly failing to manage the immigration system effectively. 

I have argued that the UK government needs to show bold moral leadership by:

• Taking responsibility for failed immigration policies.

• Humanising immigration discourse.

• Ensuring immigration policy is evidence-based.

The unveiling of Labour's Immigration White Paper gives us a chance to assess whether they have the courage and ability to break free from performative politics. While it goes some way towards these recommendations, there remain significant contradictions and concerns.

This Immigration White Paper goes some way towards these:

• There is frequent reference to and acknowledgement of immigration policies which have failed and contributed to the situation we now face.  However, within this, there is an implicit blaming of the Tories when Labour utterly failed to hold them to account for the policies leading to this.

  
  

• More constructive and humanising language is used in the policy paper compared to many in recent years.  However the use of the phrase ‘irregular and illegal migration’ belies the ideological struggle within a single government policy document as Labour fail to reconcile the deeply dissonant framing of these words, opting instead to use them both.

  
  

• These proposed policies make significant efforts to be (or at least appear to be) more evidence-based than immigration policy of the last 14 years. The narrative painted is that the days of government policy by press release / op-ed are gone, replaced by some hard facts and a clear(er) rationale.  As I have advocated for, the policy focus has started to shift slightly from the relatively minor but politically incendiary ‘geographic flow’ across the Channel to the far less visible ‘status flow’ at the end of expired visas.

Encouragingly, there are some compassionate provisions for bereaved parents, care leavers and a commitment to ‘consider’ improvements for children raised all their lives in the UK who lack a regular status.  There is also a fairly uncontroversial requirement for visa dependants to speak English.  However, with the matter of ‘integration’ specifically, there needs to be an acknowledgement that, for many years, the government has actively prevented newcomers to the UK from learning and improving their English (in the first 6 months after their arrival).

A ‘skills shortage’?

One of the most significant critiques that could be levelled at Labour's White Paper is the specious reasoning around the UK's labour market needs. Although they are right to highlight ingrained systemic issues affecting recruitment, the White Paper fails to grasp more influential cultural and societal drivers.

There is a big focus in the White Paper on the UK’s ‘skills shortage’ and the implications for recruitment / immigration policy.  I would argue that there is more of a ‘motivation shortage’ for Brits to undertake jobs of the ‘3 Ds’; dirty, difficult, and dangerous.

Closing overseas recruitment for social care is unlikely to resolve this issue when the dearth of British applicants for such positions directly correlates for the low value we have as a society for older and disabled people.  This results in low aspiration / ambition to pursue such work, with little infrastructure / investment to develop this into an attractive career path.  This would also require a fitting level of pay to attract British people to work in the sector (impeded by the incredibly tight margins for those running such organisations).  If a British social care worker can’t afford to pay their rent (let alone save for a deposit), coupled with the fact that it’s very hard work, why would anyone do it?  With or without overseas recruitment, you can’t train people who don’t want to be trained.

What’s the point in churning out ever more British graduates who aren’t able to find jobs if we’re failing to encourage and inspire people to fill the jobs that lie vacant?  Over decades, we’ve raised people’s expectations and aspirations for their lives and work to an unrealistic point in relation to the realities of the UK labour market.  How many jobs in the UK right now genuinely require a Bachelors / Masters degree?  The result is many people looking for jobs that don’t exist, (ignoring the undesirable ones that do), whilst overseas workers are infinitely more driven to take up these positions, stepping in to care for those who are older and disabled.

The mismatch between Brits' career goals and the UK's labour needs provide a setting ripe for exploitation through 'precaritisation'; subjugation of overseas workers, making migrants easier to manage for financial gain.

Photo credit: Ethan Wilkinson

Precaritisation

Western societies, including the UK, have, for many decades, relied upon an easily exploitable migrant labour force to fill the jobs Brits don’t want to do, with the permanent threat of their ‘deportability’ keeping them compliant and malleable.

As the White Paper reiterates, when you recruit an overseas worker for a role on the Shortage Occupation List, you can pay them 20% less than the minimum wage you have to pay a British Citizen.  This is a perverse incentive and facilitates the state sponsored and extractive exploitation of migrants.

I’ve seen firsthand the abuse and exploitation of overseas workers employed in social care.  Vulnerable people in precaritised situations, who are not given legally mandated breaks between shifts, let go on a whim despite moving halfway across the world, having paid unscrupulous agents to get them there.  Many people and their dependents have been left destitute and desperate in the UK, with charities left to advocate for them to access justice and basic support services.

It’s quite easy for employers to exploit and abuse migrant workers, who can always be threatened with the queue of people behind them waiting to fill any vacant position.  Less so British citizens who know their rights, can advocate more confidently for themselves, and know they can’t be deported.

The White Paper proposals to help international workers better understand and exercise their rights is absolutely the correct thing to do, and it is likely to make life harder for the government as employers dislike the pushback they receive.

The White Paper talks about strengthening protections for migrants who are exploited and abused, and yet when ‘tougher’ anti-migrant rhetoric is used / unchallenged in public debate, this leads to:

• Normalising of anti-immigrant public discourse (and, by proxy, racialised / diaspora communities).

• Emboldened racist discrimination in public services towards citizens and migrants as part of ‘everyday bordering’.

• Reduced engagement with support services and authorities for people who are being exploited and abused.

Other concerns

The Home Office talk about higher returns in recent months but they are taking credit for returns they have done nothing to facilitate or enforce, simply as a result of the UK becoming a less attractive place for international citizens to live (a dubious thing to celebrate).

It is important that the UK improves its methods for monitoring entry and exit, because how can you keep accurate records (or even deport people) if you don’t know who is here and where they are?  As we saw with the Windrush Scandal, a lack of record keeping by the government led to terrible injustices against racialised diaspora communities.  However, managing such record keeping and monitoring in a dignified, humane and proportionate way is a significant challenge.

The government propose reforming the application of Article 8 right to family life in cases with a weak claim to this.  However, as we saw with the failed Rwanda policy, dictating to the courts exactly how they must interpret the human rights law is unlikely to be successful.

Is there a legitimate and appropriate way to prevent international students from claiming asylum in the UK?  Any practical implementation of this risks contravening human rights law and immorally discriminating against potential students from unstable nations.

The government’s stated desire to use so-called ‘scientific’ methods for age assessment has once again reared its head (in a reinforcement of Tory policy) despite these being largely inhumane, prohibitively intrusive and scientifically inaccurate.

Conclusion

Labour's Immigration White Paper demonstrates some advances in policy's framing of migration compared to the last 15 years, whilst perpetuating many issues present in the current system. Whilst extensive in their scope, the proposed reforms fail to resolve tensions between what the UK wants and what the UK needs (or politicians' interpretation of such things).

Immigration touches on almost every aspect of British life and society, making any plans for reform vast in their remit, and therefore, pretty unwieldy.  I don’t envy the job of any Home Secretary.  And immigration is only one part of their brief!

And yet concerningly, UK governments have a long history of wielding restrictive immigration controls as ‘the only way’ to achieve positive ‘race relations’ / social cohesion and progress.

A fundamental challenge with immigration is that ‘really wanting to live somewhere’ is not sufficient grounds, in law, to do so.  And yet, where there are reasonable grounds to consider someone’s application, our overly complex systems bend towards creating ever-greater irregularity rather than granting a regular status.

In short, some aspects of the Hostile Environment policies and the Tories’ obsession with anti-immigrant rhetoric, live on and are strengthened in this Labour Government White Paper.  And yet, this set of policies are more positive in tone and framing of migration than most we have seen for many years; a small win whilst we wait in hope for the bold moral leadership UK immigration policy really needs.