Emergency plans to stop 'Boriswave' migrants having automatic right to stay in UK
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is drawing up emergency plans to deal with the so-called 'Boriswave' of migrants, LBC understands
Shabana Mahmood is drawing up emergency plans to deal with the so-called 'Boriswave' of migrants who could get the right to stay in Britain indefinitely within a year, LBC understands.
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The Home Secretary is understood to be very concerned about the possibility that around one million people who came to the UK in the last five years, may soon become eligible for indefinite leave to remain automatically under the current rules.
Reform have blamed the former PM, Mr Johnson, for up to 3.8 million people who entered the UK after Brexit under looser rules brought in by him for people from outside the EU.
Ms Mahmood is said looking at whether to make retrospective changes to the law in order to ensure that they do not get automatic rights to stay.
That is likely to open up the UK to legal challenge - but Government insiders insisted they were up for the fight.
The government are already looking to change the rules to extend indefinite leave to remain from five years to ten years.
But the Home Secretary wants to look further, and is expected to say more on her plan for that group of people soon.
Government sources said of that cohort of people, and that it could be retrospective: “She’s looking at it."
Ukrainians and people fleeing Hong Kong who were given refuge here in the UK would likely be exempt from this.
Ms Mahmood told the party conference earlier today that she wants to introduce a set of strict new criteria for migrants to adhere to in order to secure indefinite leave to remain.
A consultation on the move is expected in a new white paper in the autumn.
People could get extra points to earn indefinite leave to remain earlier, and those who did not meet the same criteria would have to wait longer.
That could include migrants having worked, not claimed “a penny” of benefits, spoke a high level of English, and had done volunteering in their local community.
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Some factors, like committing serious criminal offences, would ban someone from being able to stay forever.
Reform has said it would abolish indefinite leave to Remain if it wins the election, and would force them to apply for new routes instead.
It has suggested that hundreds of thousands of people may be deported if they don’t meet strict new criteria.
On Sunday the PM said Reform’s immigration policy was racist, but he did not believe that Nigel Farage, or that Reform supporters were racist.
