'Expect smoke and mirrors from Labour instead of a detailed plan on immigration,' says Robert Buckland
'The new Government will present continuity as a success but has nothing new to say on immigration,' says Robert Buckland
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When it came to immigration, Labour’s election manifesto was heavy on criticism, but light on positive policies.
A few points about strengthening home-grown skills, getting the Migration Advisory Committee to work more closely with other government agencies and a reorganisation of the Border Force to deal with small boats, but that was all.
No targets, no caps, no timescales and the removal of the Rwanda scheme. A case of no steps forward and two steps back, it would seem.
Instead of the enactment of a detailed plan, what we will see is smoke and mirrors from a new Government that will present continuity as success but which has nothing new to say on this issue of such importance.
It has already begun. In their first few weeks in Government, Labour has announced measures that are really a continuation of the previous Government’s work. A crackdown on illegal Vietnamese migrants is only possible because of a Conservative deal with Vietnam, for example.
The Conservative Government set up its own Ministerial enforcement taskforce which has already led to hundreds of arrests. It is good to see this work continue, but the idea that this is something new insults our intelligence.
Likewise with Anglo-French cooperation on small boats. Whilst I welcome continued good relations between the new Labour government and the French government, the hard yards of financial and political co-operation on small boats were made by Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives.
I won’t hold my breath for any acknowledgement of this in the months to come, however.
Another area where we can expect to see the art of spin writ large is the overall rate of migration, which surged in the years after the Covid lockdowns as demand from sectors such as social care rapidly increased.
Measures taken by the previous Conservative government in 2023 to limit legal numbers are already leading to reductions that are likely to continue for some time. I have no doubt that Labour will seek to claim the credit for this, even though it has nothing to do with their policies.
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Labour policymakers in search of some substance would do well to look at an unusual source: the 2024 Conservative Manifesto. As is so often the case in election campaigns, the losing Party’s manifesto is soon forgotten.
Yet in the Tory package, there was a commitment to an annual legally binding cap on migration, to the holding of an international summit to seek to reform asylum rules and to the creation of safe and legal routes subject to a cap agreed by Parliament.
These are sensible and practical measures that could have a huge impact on legal and illegal migration. My advice to the new Labour Government is to be shameless and to pick up these ideas, making them part of a genuinely new approach to this most thorny of issues.
As the new Government claims that there is a wellspring of international goodwill towards them, why not use this opportunity to seek to amend the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees to acknowledge the realities of modern mass movements and the involvement of many safe countries?
Involving Parliament in setting limits on legal migration and refugee numbers will increase accountability and help focus minds on the need for greater controls and planning when it comes to the consequences of migration.
It is clearly in our national interest for the new Government to succeed on dealing with immigration, but it won’t succeed with its current approach that places presentation above substance.
Honesty is surely the best policy, and with honesty will come the real change that is needed.