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Time for a fairer, humane immigration system

Tory policies of pursuing net migration targets has undermined our economy and our public services. Labour will end the ‘hostile environment’ writes DIANE ABBOTT

FALSE attacks from the Tories on Labour last week on the issue of immigration showed that dog whistle anti-migrant nonsense is still very much the Tories’ fall-back position under Boris Johnson.

Yet the truth is that the Conservatives’ own immigration policy is a toxic mess. They are tying themselves in knots, using dog-whistle anti-migrant rhetoric but yet being forced under scrutiny to accept that we need migrant workers for key sectors such as the NHS.

With the “Windrush Generation” scandal, they deported our own citizens and this continues to create new victims.

Now they want to use the immigration system to create a two-tier workforce to benefit their billionaire friends and start a race to the bottom on everyone’s rights at work, whilst undermining the fundamental basis of the NHS and the welfare system.

In contrast to this approach from the Tories, Labour are for a levelling up of rights, not a race to the bottom. As part of this approach, we will take decisive action to regulate the labour market to stop the undercutting of wages and conditions, and the extreme exploitation of all workers including migrant workers, with a Real Living Wage for all.

We need to be clear that ever since the start of austerity in 2010, the Tories have cut public services, homes and schools to fund handouts for the richest — and then blame migrants for the consequences of their own policies afterwards. Yet pressures on services in local communities have arisen directly from austerity cuts, pursued by the Tories and assisted by the Lib Dems, whether in local government, schools or our NHS.

Alongside this, the Tory policy of pursuing net migration targets has undermined our economy and our public services, refusing entry to essential key workers including nurses.

Additionally, this policy has not even worked on its own terms. Whilst Tory manifestos have repeatedly promised to reduce net migration, they have failed again and again to meet their own targets.

This “hostile environment” approach (which directly led to the Windrush scandal) has created division within our communities, encouraged the demonisation of migrants and enabled the callous use of three million residents as bargaining chips in our negotiations over EU withdrawal.

Now, with Boris Johnson in trouble for avoiding scrutiny of his plans and being exposed for wanting to sell the NHS off to Trump in a one-sided, sweetheart trade deal, we can expect the Tories to return more to the politics of fear and division in the last days of the campaign.

But polling shows that unlike the Tories, most of the public understands the value people from the EU and beyond have made not just to the NHS but to almost every aspect of our lives, including through contributing to our society, culture and economy, and contributing to the public coffers.

Indeed, last year Oxford Economics estimated that the total net contribution of EU migrants — taking both taxes paid and benefits received into account — was on average £2,300 per annum, or a net £78,000 paid into the public purse over their average lifetime in Britain.

The aforementioned Windrush scandal, its gross unfairness, and the wave of public outrage it provoked across British society, has created the opportunity to have a different kind of approach on immigration.

Labour then will seize this moment to build a fairer, rational, humane immigration system which meets the needs of communities and our economy.

With regards to Windrush, this means we will end its injustices and provide compensation to those who have unfairly suffered.
It is also why we will end indefinite detention, review the alternatives to the inhumane conditions of detention centres, and close Yarl’s Wood and Brook House. From doing the latter, the immediate savings we will make would contribute towards a fund of £20 million to support the survivors of modern slavery, people trafficking and domestic violence.

We will also ensure justice for migrant domestic workers and restore the overseas domestic workers’ visa.

A Labour government’s system therefore will be built on both respecting human rights and aimed at meeting the skills and labour shortages that exist in our economy and public services.

As part of this, our immigration system must allow us to recruit the people we need, and to welcome them and their families.

Linked to this, and in accordance with our values and domestic laws, we will also uphold the right to a family life for British, EU and non-EU residents alike. We will end the deportation of family members of people entitled to be here and end the minimum income requirements which separate families.

With this approach, we will challenge the climate of fear that has characterised the immigration debate in recent years and make values central to the sort of immigration system we have — namely a fairer, rational and more humane system.

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