‘Treat us fairly’: skilled workers face having their dream of settling in UK snatched away
03.03.2026 11:01 — 👍 50 🔁 16 💬 3 📌 4
‘Treat us fairly’: skilled workers face having their dream of settling in UK snatched away
03.03.2026 11:01 — 👍 50 🔁 16 💬 3 📌 4
Iran is host to one of the world’s largest refugee populations, most of them from Afghanistan.
Here’s what to know about this group and how Iran’s approach has changed over time
https://bit.ly/4h4QJBw
Treasury plans depend on net migration being much higher than current policy will deliver or current Home Secretary willing to accept.
Something will have to give. Will Labour deliver tax rises and spending cuts just before an election to keep net imm close to zero? Or let imm rise to avert this?
Major changes to asylum system set to come into force www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
02.03.2026 08:19 — 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 3
Lots of chat about Mahmoud copying Denmark's Social Democrats, and Labour 'winning' with tougher asylum and immigration policies. Jason Cowley here, for example. But there's a crucial difference between the two countries.
www.thetimes.com/world/europe...
You’re forgetting the large men left behind on the platform while women of smaller stature force their way in to packed carriages ☺️
28.02.2026 12:35 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Oxford Street is going traffic-free.
I’ve given the green light to transform it into a world-class, fully accessible pedestrian avenue. The heart of London, reclaimed for people.
If only there was some precedent in history of an "unsinkable" ship steering the wrong course at a potential hazard, at high speed, and not listening to warnings about the huge iceberg ahead....
27.02.2026 22:58 — 👍 641 🔁 135 💬 47 📌 3
Several canvassers say the *settlement* reforms (make over a million voters wait 10-15 years for settlement, not 5, is a top of mind concern for those affected & friends, family
A basic fallacy in Home Office citing more in common polling on asylum reform - a different issue - and net migration
Labour have alienated the voters they had on the left, and failed to win over any of the voters they have courted on the right. Now their core appeal is all but gone and ever growing numbers of voters have exit options on the left, right and in the centre.
Welcome to the Valley of Electoral Death.
"Ministers need to wake up."
Indeed. Some shift away from the exceptional levels of overseas recruitment 21-24 was natural/desirable.
But current "strategy" - no new visas and making life as unpleasant as possible for migrants already here - is madness.
www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
Drop in overseas workers is ‘car crash’ for UK hospitals and care homes, say experts
26.02.2026 19:56 — 👍 82 🔁 40 💬 6 📌 8
This was obvious to anyone looking at this. They created a policy that attacks people's very status to be able to live in a country and settle. No amount of saying "rules change" will help.
Alot of Labour MPs get this and are rightly livid. This should be a big wake up call for the rest.
Delighted to announce that following the consultation, I'm giving the green light to make Oxford Street traffic-free.
26.02.2026 15:18 — 👍 2879 🔁 500 💬 104 📌 196As far as I can tell from afar the most positive campaign, the one that offered some suggestion of hope, won. And that has to be a good thing for politics, because yes we need to confront the trade-offs, but there has to be an underlying positive message.
27.02.2026 06:12 — 👍 187 🔁 37 💬 3 📌 2
Sky News hearing Labour canvassers found that doubling (and tripling) the route to settlement has caused significant concern with those directly affected (Commonwealth migrants who have arrived in last 3 years)
Sheer scale of changes not yet on the general media radar, though MPs hearing a lot
On settlement and citizenship, it is crucial that the government rethinks its major reforms. Ten years to settlement - which only Switzerland has adopted - should be the ceiling, not the norm. To introduce the longest periods of “unsettlement” in any democracy – and applying them to people already here – will harm integration, not promote it. Applying these retrospectively will create an enormous constituency of grievance that will wreck any attempt to rebalance Labour’s voice on immigration. Labour may be tempted to change its tone of voice more than its policy on immigration. Indeed, the party’s comfort zone may be to try to avoid the topic, so as not to give more oxygen to Reform’s favourite issue. But changing the subject has its limits. If one of Labour’s central arguments in 2029 will be to reject importing Trumpism into Britain, it will need to find a distinct voice to articulate its alternative agenda too. What Labour needs is not a “lurch to the left” as much as a significant rebalancing of its voice to find an authentic centre-left account of how to manage immigration and integration. A liberal party membership will want to see its values reflected in policy – while remaining mindful of balancing the electoral pressures of different constituency contexts. Controlling immigration fairly means fairness for those who come to Britain and the communities they join – with more confidence to reject rather than echo the authoritarian hard-right politics of remigration and racism.
"Labour needs to rethink its major settlement reforms"
"Applying these retrospectively to people already here will create an enormous constituency of grievance that would wreck any attempt to rebalance Labour’s voice on immigration"
www.thenewworld.co.uk/sunder-katwa...
Gorton and Denton first thoughts - incredible result for the Greens who won the long battle to be the best placed anti-Reform candidate - helped by being the obvious anti-Labour candidate for disappointed progressives. As I noted in the Observer last month, a Revolt on the Left is growing
27.02.2026 06:06 — 👍 327 🔁 96 💬 17 📌 12
Labour mobility policy has the possibility to both provide refugee protection & meet host-country skill needs
📆 Join TOMORROW’s webcast:
https://bit.ly/refugeework26
🔊"The special educational needs system absolutely does need a review. We've talked about it being in crisis for some time."
Dr Amelia Roberts @ioe.bsky.social @ucl-ioe-phd.bsky.social speaks on BBC Breakfast about the highly anticipated #SchoolsWhitePaper and potential reforms to #SEND provision.
Zia Yusuf's rhetoric of protecting Christianity, rhetorically, is combined with an indecent threat to deport many tens of thousands of Christians, including those here 5-20 years with permanent status, as well as recent arrivals, from across the Commonwealth and elsewhere outside Europe
23.02.2026 14:05 — 👍 72 🔁 35 💬 7 📌 3
"This fragmented and uncertain contest will go to the wire, but one thing is already certain: defeat for Labour would be a disaster for the Starmer government"
🗳️ For everything you need to know about the Gorton and Denton by-election, check out Rob Ford's useful guide 👇
https://ow.ly/RjFm50YiSeY
🚨 OUT TODAY 🚨
Poor prison healthcare is harming public health and efforts to cut reoffending — with long-term costs to society.
Our new briefing explores healthcare in British prisons and sets out key reforms.
Read more: buff.ly/W6K4TDJ
Kindly sponsored by Policy@Manchester
25% discount on my new book today and tomorrow, for anyone interested in an accessible overview of why immigration is difficult and unpopular
18.02.2026 12:59 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
"But the inevitable trade-offs immigration policy presents mean that the reality is messier and more complicated than it might initially seem."
📖 @msumption.bsky.social looks at what immigration policy is for and explains the trade-offs ahead of her forthcoming book
🔗 ukandeu.ac.uk/what-is-immi...
Can the government boost domestic training by restricting migration?
In a new briefing, @msumption.bsky.social and I find that migrants on work visas are a small part of a much wider picture. Here's what you need to know, in three posts.
migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/co...
Policy debates often focus on who is eligible for work visas, but main applicants on work visas make up only a small share of overall migration.
You can see what that means in this chart, which compares Skilled Worker visa grants with changes in the size of the migrant workforce.
🛂 New Paper | Settling Up: A new deal to unlock immigration reform and build trust
Today, as the consultation window on the government’s proposed ‘earned settlement’ plan closes, our new paper on the issue calls for practical action to detoxify the immigration debate.
demos.co.uk/research/set...
"I the past three years, a group of Nigerian families has moved into the area. Most are employed as engineers or health and social care workers."
So Govt's main policy offer to this area is to try to kick these people out. Both futile and wrong.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
