Starmer’s other leadership campaign immigration pledges were to introduce full voting rights for EU nationals, an immigration system “based on compassion and dignity”, to end indefinite detention, and to “call for” the closure of centres such as Yarl’s Wood.
His critics on the left will argue that his hokey cokey on free movement means these other pledges will also be casually tossed aside. But the free movement pledge was always the most electorally sensitive one, reopening the Brexit divide that sliced through Labour’s coalition of voters – a divide Starmer is desperate to stitch back together.
Labour lacks any strategic framework through which to approach immigration policy. Any strategist can point out the electoral risks of pushing for more open immigration policies. But even after New Labour’s decade-long torrent of crackdowns on non-EU immigration it was still seen as the “party of immigration” by anti-immigration voters, having achieved nothing with it
NHS leaders have warned that post-Brexit UK immigration rules will make visas difficult to access for care workers, sparking a potential shortage of staff. The NHS Confederation has urged government ministers to show ‘flexibility and pragmatism’ across the new system to prevent the flow of international care workers from drying up.
The NHS Confederation, which represents health organisations across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, fears that care workers from Europe and elsewhere in the world will struggle to qualify for visas under the UK’s strict, post-Brexit immigration system.
Hundreds of thousands of vacancies
Senior European policy manager for the Confederation, Kate Ling, told a parliamentary inquiry that there were 112,000 care work vacancies across the sector at any given time and that there are genuinely severe concerns that the new UK immigration rules will make the situation worse.
The Home Office has been accused of pandering to the far right by dumping asylum-seekers in dilapidated army barracks after internal documents came to light suggesting the decision was politically motivated.
The government has come under increasing pressure to shut down two Ministry of Defence sites where it has been holding hundreds of asylum-seekers since September amid serious concerns over safety.
On Friday a fire broke out at Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent, part-destroying one building. A charity supporting residents there said that asylum-seekers had been “completely abandoned” without water, food or power following the blaze.
Today Care4Calais founder Clare Moseley told the Morning Star that generators have since been installed to return power to the barracks and that meals were resumed by camp management on Saturday.
According to a report published by The Guardian, EU citizens are being offered financial incentives to leave the UK. The report claims that EU nationals are being added to a voluntary returns scheme with the Home Office offering to cover the cost of flights and hand out £2,000 for resettlement.
The news comes with just over three months to the deadline for EU citizens to apply for UK settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme. Since 1 January, EU citizens have quietly been added to the voluntary returns scheme.
However, the government has been accused of contradicting itself with the scheme. Groups supporting vulnerable EU citizens in the UK claim that the offer of money to return home contradicts government comments stating that it was ‘doing everything it could’ to encourage people to register for the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS).
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