After Labour’s U-turn on migrant settlement, Nigel Farage pledges to review every grant of British citizenship made possible by the change.
The debate over indefinite leave to remain is happening because of an absolutely dreadful betrayal of the will not just of Brexit voters but of those who voted for Boris Johnson’s government in 2019.
In 2010, 2015 and 2017, the Conservatives promised to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands a year. The implication in 2019, with Brexit, was exactly the same.
Yet in 2023, net migration was nearly one million.
Our big fear about the Boriswave was what the enormous cost for this country would be. The cost in terms of numbers, the cost in terms of pressure on the NHS, the cost in terms of housing, of rental prices and everything else.
That’s why last September, Zia Yusuf and I gave a press conference in which we said indefinite leave to remain after five years in the country is not a right. Actually, it’s being abused by too many people who use it as a means not only to live on benefits for the rest of their lives, but also to bring family members in from across the rest of the world.
Controversial? Yes. Everything we do is controversial. That is, until everybody else copies it.
A few weeks later, the relatively new Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood said pretty much what we were saying. She was worried about the Boriswave, worried about the huge damage the Tory government had done to the country. She wouldn’t remove indefinite leave to remain, but she’d kick the can down the road for at least another five years.
The tough new Home Secretary has found that her own left-wing backbenchers simply won’t tolerate it. Even the Prime Minister, at the time of the Makerfield by-election, said he was very much minded to support the reforms.
But Labour has now backed down. Health and care visa holders covered by the exemption will still be able to apply for indefinite leave to remain after five years. Now, of course, comes the capitulation – or should I say the beginning of the capitulation.
How many people will go directly on to indefinite leave to remain and then citizenship one year later? It’s difficult to tell. Is it a quarter of a million? Is it the first quarter of a million? Does it open the door to legal challenges and many, many others? We will see.
Normal countries don’t give out work visas, allow you to bring dependants, automatically give you indefinite leave to remain and then, one year later, citizenship.
Our position is very clear. For anybody who goes through to indefinite leave to remain and citizenship under the scheme that’s been opened today, we will review each and every one of those grants of citizenship.
Our approach today is not one I would have wished to take. I always thought that the granting of British citizenship was a very special thing. But it has now been so devalued that we will need to review each and every case.
This is an edited extract of a speech delivered by Nigel Farage on 2nd November. Watch the full press conference here.