Jonathan Thomas is a senior fellow specialising in migration at the Social Market Foundation.
Amidst the ongoing tangle of stopping the boats, the government had increasingly boxed itself in on migration more broadly. The tension between its overarching policy mantra (that numbers must come down) and its relatively liberal policies (allowing more people in) had become so great that something had to give. Now it has.
How did we get here?
Successive Conservative leaders have staked their reputation with voters on reducing immigration numbers. Yet they did not prioritise achieving this objective in their actual policies, because reducing immigration numbers is hard, and has many unpalatable practical effects.
So, while the Government ended freedom of movement from the EU, it has also presided over a suite of revised immigration policies more liberal than those advised by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC): on the post-study work visa, on the minimum salary threshold, and on the logic of the Shortage Occupation List to allow lower wages to be paid in occupations struggling to attract staff.
External events played their part. But so did a range of deliberate government policies: humanitarian schemes for Syria, Ukraine and Hong Kong, and liberalising changes to the work immigration system and to the international student visa system, all operated to admit large numbers of deserving and productive people.
The net result was more overall immigration. But, given the emphasis that government rhetoric placed on reducing numbers, it couldn’t claim credit for this outcome. Instead, it was increasingly viewed as damaging to the electoral prospects, and indeed to the future, of the Conservative party.
Politics trumps policy
The Government therefore faced a stark political choice. Either drop, and distance itself from, its reduction of numbers mantra, claiming credit instead for the relatively effective and liberal post-Brexit immigration system it had created. Or make some headline policy changes and reversals to make its policy more consistent with its rhetoric.
Politically, the former would not only have highlighted the contradictions of the Conservatives’ recent record on immigration, but also provided Labour with the opportunity to outflank them – for instance by itself committing to raising the minimum salary threshold for overseas workers, then claiming to be the tougher party on immigration.
Faced with that fearful prospect, the Government finally made significant increases to both the minimum salary threshold for workers and the minimum income requirement for incoming overseas partners of British citizens (even taking into account the subsequent announcement of the staggered implementation of the latter). Without even consulting the MAC, this was knee-jerk policymaking, but it shows the level of panic caused by the political risk.
Too little too late?
Even with these changes, come the next election, immigration numbers will still be far higher than the Conservative leadership promised. So politically is this too little too late? Perhaps to recover the Conservatives’ short run electoral prospects. But in the longer-term, it could provide a political lifeline.
The Government can now at last claim consistency, and at least enter the next election arguing, with more of a straight face, that it has tried to deliver lower immigration. When the 2023 year-end immigration numbers are released, regardless of what they show, Ministers can seek to neutralise them by retorting: ‘Ah yes, but our major changes to reduce the numbers had not been implemented yet’.
The fact that the changes will have only limited time to have any effect before the next election has obvious downsides – but upsides also. In this short time, any labour shortages exacerbated are unlikely to damage the government’s overall economic record – such as it is – which over most of its term has been supported by high levels of immigration.
In any event, the most performative element of the changes – the minimum income increase required for overseas partners to come to the UK – while hugely affecting impacted individuals will have relatively little effect on overall immigration numbers, or on the economy.
That it will likely not be clear by the next election to what extent the Government’s action now has actually reduced immigration numbers may help to blunt any Labour attacks, and provide the Conservatives with the chance to claim some credit should immigration numbers fall after a new Labour government has been elected.
And, rather than presenting a new Labour government with an open goal of itself being able to bring in a more restrictive changes, the changes now being made by the government will instead at least put Labour in a more difficult position. For Labour’s instinct on some of these measures – particularly the higher minimum income requirement for partners – will be to re-liberalise them. And, if it does so, this should at least allow the Conservatives to keep their cherished mantle of being the tougher party on immigration. That is the path the Conservatives have now doubled down on.
Jonathan Thomas is a senior fellow specialising in migration at the Social Market Foundation.
Amidst the ongoing tangle of stopping the boats, the government had increasingly boxed itself in on migration more broadly. The tension between its overarching policy mantra (that numbers must come down) and its relatively liberal policies (allowing more people in) had become so great that something had to give. Now it has.
How did we get here?
Successive Conservative leaders have staked their reputation with voters on reducing immigration numbers. Yet they did not prioritise achieving this objective in their actual policies, because reducing immigration numbers is hard, and has many unpalatable practical effects.
So, while the Government ended freedom of movement from the EU, it has also presided over a suite of revised immigration policies more liberal than those advised by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC): on the post-study work visa, on the minimum salary threshold, and on the logic of the Shortage Occupation List to allow lower wages to be paid in occupations struggling to attract staff.
External events played their part. But so did a range of deliberate government policies: humanitarian schemes for Syria, Ukraine and Hong Kong, and liberalising changes to the work immigration system and to the international student visa system, all operated to admit large numbers of deserving and productive people.
The net result was more overall immigration. But, given the emphasis that government rhetoric placed on reducing numbers, it couldn’t claim credit for this outcome. Instead, it was increasingly viewed as damaging to the electoral prospects, and indeed to the future, of the Conservative party.
Politics trumps policy
The Government therefore faced a stark political choice. Either drop, and distance itself from, its reduction of numbers mantra, claiming credit instead for the relatively effective and liberal post-Brexit immigration system it had created. Or make some headline policy changes and reversals to make its policy more consistent with its rhetoric.
Politically, the former would not only have highlighted the contradictions of the Conservatives’ recent record on immigration, but also provided Labour with the opportunity to outflank them – for instance by itself committing to raising the minimum salary threshold for overseas workers, then claiming to be the tougher party on immigration.
Faced with that fearful prospect, the Government finally made significant increases to both the minimum salary threshold for workers and the minimum income requirement for incoming overseas partners of British citizens (even taking into account the subsequent announcement of the staggered implementation of the latter). Without even consulting the MAC, this was knee-jerk policymaking, but it shows the level of panic caused by the political risk.
Too little too late?
Even with these changes, come the next election, immigration numbers will still be far higher than the Conservative leadership promised. So politically is this too little too late? Perhaps to recover the Conservatives’ short run electoral prospects. But in the longer-term, it could provide a political lifeline.
The Government can now at last claim consistency, and at least enter the next election arguing, with more of a straight face, that it has tried to deliver lower immigration. When the 2023 year-end immigration numbers are released, regardless of what they show, Ministers can seek to neutralise them by retorting: ‘Ah yes, but our major changes to reduce the numbers had not been implemented yet’.
The fact that the changes will have only limited time to have any effect before the next election has obvious downsides – but upsides also. In this short time, any labour shortages exacerbated are unlikely to damage the government’s overall economic record – such as it is – which over most of its term has been supported by high levels of immigration.
In any event, the most performative element of the changes – the minimum income increase required for overseas partners to come to the UK – while hugely affecting impacted individuals will have relatively little effect on overall immigration numbers, or on the economy.
That it will likely not be clear by the next election to what extent the Government’s action now has actually reduced immigration numbers may help to blunt any Labour attacks, and provide the Conservatives with the chance to claim some credit should immigration numbers fall after a new Labour government has been elected.
And, rather than presenting a new Labour government with an open goal of itself being able to bring in a more restrictive changes, the changes now being made by the government will instead at least put Labour in a more difficult position. For Labour’s instinct on some of these measures – particularly the higher minimum income requirement for partners – will be to re-liberalise them. And, if it does so, this should at least allow the Conservatives to keep their cherished mantle of being the tougher party on immigration. That is the path the Conservatives have now doubled down on.