This is a preview of Migration Watch’s free weekly newsletter. You can read the full version here.
Please consider signing up to the newsletter directly, you can do so here and will receive an email copy of the newsletter every Friday as soon as it is released.
For almost a month now Immigration has dominated the headlines. Here’s a recap of what has happened:
On 13th November, Home Secretary Suella Braverman was sacked for writing an article in The Times that had not been cleared by Downing Street. She was replaced by James Cleverly, the former Foreign Secretary.
In her resignation letter she didn’t mince her words, accusing the Prime Minister of failing to keep to the agreement they made – in return for which she stepped aside in last year’s leadership contest, allowing him to be selected unopposed. The agreement included tackling runaway legal migration and going further with the ‘stop the boats’ legislation. This latter failure resulted in the Rwanda plan getting mired in the courts. You can read her resignation letter here.
On 15th November, the Supreme Court ruled that the Rwanda Plan was unlawful because Rwanda might return rejected asylum seekers to an unsafe country (NB, not that Rwanda itself was unsafe). The government’s response has been to bring to parliament emergency legislation (to be introduced next week) to address points made by the Supreme Court that led to the Rwanda Plan being declared illegal.
On 23rd November, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Home Office released the latest immigration data. This included an astonishing revision to the net migration figure for 2022, going from 606,000 to 745,000. An increase of 140,000 or nearly a fifth. That is some revision. Meanwhile, the estimated net migration for the year ending June 2023 was 670,000. Will this figure too see a, nearly 20% upward revision? The Home Office data, additionally, showed that in the first nine months of 2023, the number of work visas issued had increased by 54% and family visas rose 117%. In response, the new Home Secretary said, “This figure is not showing a significant increase from last year’s.”
On 28th November, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said he had presented plans to cut immigration the previous year, which had been ignored [by the Prime Minister].
On 4th December, the government announced changes to the immigration rules which, we were told, would cut immigration by around 300,000 per year. We have been unable to work out exactly how this 300,000 reduction will be achieved. We intend to ask for clarification. While some of the proposed toughening of the rules and raising of salary levels, as well as the abandoning of the shortage of occupation list (SOL) is welcome, we doubt that they will lead to a significant reduction in net migration any time soon.
On 5th December, another treaty was signed with Rwanda. This committed Rwanda not to send failed asylum seekers to unsafe countries and the UK to taking back any asylum seekers guilty of committing serious offences in Rwanda.
The Rwandan foreign minister later made clear that his country would withdraw from the deal should the UK breach global conventions – the implication being that Rwanda would pull out of the agreement if the UK withdrew from the ECHR or 1951 Refugee Convention.
On the 6th of December, new legislation was laid before Parliament which would unambiguously rule that Rwanda is a ‘safe country’ and dis-apply parts of the 1998 Human Rights Act, as well as some global rules. However, the Bill falls short of ruling out all possible routes of appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. In response, Robert Jenrick resigned, stating that the proposed legislation would not work.
Mrs Braverman’s view on the proposed legislation was also sceptical. In her resignation statement she said, “The Conservative Party faces electoral oblivion in a matter of months if we introduce yet another Bill destined to fail.”
This is a preview of Migration Watch’s free weekly newsletter. You can read the full version here.
Please consider signing up to the newsletter directly, you can do so here and will receive an email copy of the newsletter every Friday as soon as it is released.