Labour to introduce ‘good citizen’ test for immigrants seeking UK settlement

Under new Labour Party plans, immigrants will be forced to leave the United Kingdom if they cannot prove they are “good citizens.”

Foreign nationals will be required to volunteer in their communities, have an “impeccable” criminal record, speak a high level of English, and make a net contribution to the economy to be granted permanent residency.

In her first speech as shadow home secretary at the Labour Party conference, Shabana Mahmood will announce plans to make it more difficult to obtain indefinite leave to remain, which allows immigrants to live, work, and study permanently in the UK.

This is the latest example of the Labour Party toughening its immigration policy in an effort to curb the popularity of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party.

Mahmood is set to warn in her speech that if Labour does not tighten its policy, there is a risk that “working people will turn away from us, the party that has been theirs for over a century, and seek solace in the false promises of Farage.”

Last week, Farage announced plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain entirely, a proposal Prime Minister Keir Starmer described as “racist.”

Reform’s plans would also apply to those who already have settled status in the UK, meaning hundreds of thousands of people would face the risk of deportation.

Labour’s plans will compel immigrants who do not “contribute to society” to leave the UK. However, these plans will not apply to foreign citizens who already have settled status.

Intensifying his attacks on Farage at the start of the Labour conference, Starmer told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, “Last week, there was talk of deporting immigrants who have been living here legally for years, working in our hospitals and schools, running their businesses, who are our neighbours, and Reform says they want to deport them. That would tear our country apart.”

Currently, immigrants can apply for indefinite leave to remain after five years, and this is generally granted automatically if basic conditions are met.

Under Labour’s plans, this period will be extended to ten years. Settlement will have to be earned through qualification criteria that will determine whether immigrants have contributed to the economy and society. Those who do not contribute sufficiently will have to wait more than ten years, while others may never qualify at all.

The conditions immigrants must meet to obtain indefinite leave to remain include working, paying National Insurance contributions, not claiming social benefits, learning a high level of English, having no criminal record, and “contributing to local communities” through voluntary work.

Immigrants who commit crimes will not be automatically barred from the right to settlement but will be penalised by having to wait longer to apply. The length of this period will depend on the seriousness of the crimes; those who commit serious offences will be permanently barred from staying.

Labour sources said that in these cases, immigrants would have to apply for another visa, and these applications would likely be rejected due to their criminal records. They would then be forced to leave the UK or be deported.

Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, noted that the new conditions move settlement rules away from being a “box-ticking exercise” but said that asking people to volunteer would be particularly difficult to assess.

“It’s not possible to evaluate whether a person is contributing socially as clearly as you can assess how much a person earns or how many benefits they receive. It’s easy to assess how many benefits a person receives or how much they earn. It will be very difficult to assess whether a person is a pillar of the community,” Sumption said, objecting to the plan.

The vast majority of immigrants cannot claim social benefits until they obtain indefinite leave to remain, and Labour’s plans will mostly affect refugees. Currently, about 120,000 refugees receive Universal Credit. They will have to wait longer to apply for settled status or decide to stop claiming social benefits.

The requirement to work and pay National Insurance contributions also seems likely to affect refugees the most, as their employment rate of 37% is below that of other immigrants.

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said, “By penalising refugees in need of support, we are telling them that no matter how hard they work in the future, they will never find a safe and permanent home in Britain. This is the very opposite of promoting integration and contribution.”