Our Response to the Government’s White Paper on Immigration
Are you affected by the recent planned changes in the White Paper? Share your story with us now!
On the 12th of May, Starmer released the Government’s new White Paper on immigration. White papers are produced by the Government with proposals for future legislation, with this one focusing on a myriad of reforms and overhauls for the UK’s immigration and border regime.
Migrant Democracy Project heavily rejects the narrative created within this white paper, which has attempted to further legitimise the hostility around migration - parroting a politics of xenophobia that considers migration through lenses of criminality and security rather than one based in humanity, rights, and freedom.
The white paper outlined changes to be introduced in four main areas:
Migrants Access to Work
Migrants Access to Study
Settlement and Integration
Enforcement and Deportations
For an in-depth analysis of all the changes proposed, Freemovement has done some excellent analysis into each of these four main areas and when and how these changes might come into play.
While the White Paper includes many potential reforms that would affect our communities - it is really important to emphasise that it is incredibly unclear on how and when the majority of these reforms will start being implemented.
Central to these reforms are the plans to increase the settlement and qualifying period, with the current five year path to settlement being doubled to ten years. If enacted, the current five year pathway will be doubled to ten years for those of us seeking settlement and/or citizenship. However, like much of the rest of the white paper, the general lack of clarity around these reforms makes it difficult to predict which communities this will affect. It’s unclear whether these will affect only those newly arriving or include those who are already on a path to settlement.
The proposed increased timeline seems to be part of the Government’s broader attempts to make settlement and citizenship harder to reach for many migrant communities. The announcements in the White Paper followed earlier changes to citizenship eligibility.
Earlier this year, the government quietly made changes to the eligibility criteria for citizenship, barring those who had entered the country irregularly from February 10th onwards from ever meeting the “good character” requirement necessary to become naturalised.
MDP stands in strong opposition to these anti-immigration narratives and policies that reflect a consistent shift, by successive governments, towards making settlement and citizenship harder for migrants who call the UK their home.
Increasing barriers to settlement and citizenship have a significant impact on an individuals’ ability to fully be a part of their home in the UK. Individuals and organisations from across the UK - ranging from trade unions, to charities, to religious leaders have continued to challenge the government’s increased hostility towards migrants settling in the UK.
MDP echoes and joins the call for the government to make citizenship and settlement easier and more accessible to those seeking to call the UK their home. We particularly emphasise the effects that these heightened barriers will have on a person's ability to vote.
In a democracy where electoral participation is directly linked to citizenship, barriers to becoming naturalised only makes voting harder for millions of individuals living here in the UK.
Voter eligibility in the UK is unfair and complex, with many migrant communities unable to vote because of their nationality. For many, citizenship remains one of the only ways to secure this civic right to participate in our democracy. Yet, now the changes already enforced and those further highlighted in the White Paper, would further alienate thousands from ever gaining access to this right.
MDP not only strongly condemns the White Paper’s narrative, and the government’s continued attempts at heightening barriers to citizenship, but we also continue to call for the implementation of residence-based voting rights.
Our ability to participate in our democracy should not be dictated by our ability to jump through the ever-changing and needless bureaucratic hurdles attached to citizenship. We believe that everyone who lives and calls the UK their home, should be given the right to vote.
Votes for all remain essential in ensuring that migrants are made part of the political conversation. That we have the agency to participate, dictate, and shape a conversation that is very much about us without ever giving us a voice.
Write to your MP now and ask them to support votes for all!
