London, May 13: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will on Monday unveil plans to tighten immigration rules, confronting an issue that has bedeviled successive governments and fuelled the rise of a new anti-immigrant party that could threaten the country’s political establishment.Starmer, whose centre-left Labour Party won a landslide victory last July, is facing pressure from voters who are increasingly frustrated by high levels of immigration that many believe have strained public services and inflamed ethnic tensions in some parts of the country.
Starmer is pledging to end what his office described as “Britain’s failed experiment in open borders,” less than two weeks after Reform UK rode the immigration issue to victories in local elections. Labour and the center-right Conservatives, long the dominant parties in British politics, both saw their support crater in the contests for local government councils and mayors.
“Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control. Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall,” Starmer said in excerpts of a speech to be delivered on Monday. “We will create a system that is controlled, selective and fair.”
Immigration has been a potent issue in Britain since 2004, when the European Union expanded to Eastern Europe. While most EU countries restricted immigration from the new member states for a period of years, the UK immediately opened its labor market, attracting a flood of new arrivals.
By 2010, then-Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to cut annual net immigration to less than 1,00,000, a target four Conservative governments failed to meet. In 2016, anger over the government’s inability to control immigration from the EU triggered a referendum in which Britain voted to leave the bloc.