Uk desk: Britain\u2019s interior minister proposed tough new rules on Monday for migrants seeking to settle in the UK, as the ruling Labour party sought to bolster its fight against the hard right at its annual conference. Migrants looking to remain indefinitely will have to have a job, not claim benefits and undertake volunteer community work under plans designed to claw back support among voters drawn to the hard-right, anti-immigrant Reform UK party, whose popularity is soaring in opinion polls.<\/p>\n
Confronting Reform, led by firebrand Nigel Farage, is the main theme of Labour\u2019s four- day gathering in Liverpool, northwest England. Currently, migrants with family in Britain and who have lived in the country for five years qualify for \u2018indefinite leave to remain\u2019 \u2014 permanent residence \u2014 as do those who have lived legally in the UK for 10 years on any type of visa. Eligible applicants meeting those thresholds also earn the right to live, work and study in the UK and to apply for benefits and British citizenship. But in a major policy shift, interior minister Shabana Mahmood was to tell the Labour conference that migrants would have to make social security contributions, claim no benefits, have a clean criminal record and volunteer in their community in order to stay. The government will consult on the changes later this year.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes after Reform, which is currently leading in national polls, vowed to get rid of \u2018indefinite leave to remain\u2019 altogether, with migrants instead required to reapply for visas every five years. This would apply to the hundreds of thousands of people who already have the right to remain. \u2018These measures draw a clear dividing line between the Labour government and Reform, whose recent announcement would force workers who have been contributing to this country for decades to leave their homes and families,\u2019 Labour said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Embattled prime minister Keir Starmer on Sunday called Reform\u2019s plan \u2018racist\u2019 and \u2018immoral\u2019, saying it would \u2018tear the country apart\u2019. He is under pressure to convince elements of his centre-left party that he is the right leader to take on Reform, and has urged the party to unite for the \u2018fight of our lives\u2019 against Farage, a keen admirer of US president Donald Trump.Matthew Atkinson, a 19-year-old student, lamented that Starmer\u2019s response to Farage had been to make Labour \u2018more like Reform\u2019.\u2018We need to encourage our representatives to be more bold in the beliefs and the values that we hold,\u2019 the Labour member said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Uk desk: Britain’s interior minister proposed tough new rules on Monday for migrants seeking to settle in the UK, as the ruling Labour party sought to bolster its fight against the hard right at its annual conference. Migrants looking to remain indefinitely will have to have a job, not claim benefits and undertake volunteer community work under plans designed to claw back support among voters drawn to the hard-right, anti-immigrant Reform UK party, whose popularity is soaring in opinion polls. Confronting Reform, led by firebrand Nigel Farage, is the main<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31686,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31685"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31687,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31685\/revisions\/31687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}