Goodbye to hardline immigration reforms

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1:01Noa Hoffman: Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots. I'm Nail Hoffman and today I'm delighted to be joined by Tim Shipman and James Heal. Now we have at long last received confirmation of the very long-awaited Shabana Mahmood reforms to indefinite leave to remain. Tim, can you take us through some of the top lines?

1:23James Heale: Yeah, I mean, this is an interesting one, because she wanted to increase indefinite leave to remain up to 10 years, and it's caused ructions in the Labour Party. And what we've got here is a partial climb down to Labour MPs. But actually, I think on the face of it, it's still a much tougher policy than what we've had. So essentially, if you come here and you earn less than£50 ,000 a year, you will take 10 years to get your indefinite leave to remain. If you have come and earned over£50 ,000, that will be reduced to five years. And in exceptional cases, those people earning over£125 ,000 a year is down to three years.

2:02James Heale: Now, there is a carve out for people who came here in what's known as the Boris wave for social care reasons. and there were a quarter of a million of those people and they will have a five-year path if they have fulfilled their visas, paid what they need to pay and there will then be tougher rules for those who have not fulfilled their visas. They'll be given another chance to apply for a five-year visa but essentially if they haven't fulfilled the terms on which they came here that's about a quarter of those people so there's sort of 60 ,000 people who will not get it straight away within five years.

2:36James Heale: They'll have the chance to go again for five years And then, you know, the interesting thing is how you come here will matter. So the basic time you have to wait is 10 years. If you come here by boat across the channel, you will have to wait an additional 10 years. And if you then refuse to work or study, you will wait a further 10 years. So for some people who come here as effectively to take the mick, it will be a 30-year wait. And so this was still a relatively tough policy. I think, you know, the Tories were jumping all over the fact that there's this carve-out for social care, which was kind of the bare minimum that Labour MPs wanted.

3:11James Heale: And it'll be interesting to see how she copes with this. I mean, Diana was straight on her feet condemning it all and saying it was unfair. I thought it was very telling, though. Either side of her were Lucy Powell and Louise Hague. and they are the sort of two key sort of female power brokers in the government and they chose to sit next to her. The Prime Minister was not there because he's abroad but she was not left on her own on the front bench to try and defend this. Louise Haig, you know, effectively the Deputy Prime Minister and Lucy Powell, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, were both alongside her and I think, you know, that shows that the regime will try and push this through in the form that it is now.

3:48Tim Shipman: Yeah, and I think that what Tim says is pretty fair. I think what we had was Shabana Mahmood trying to effectively triangulate between herself and her colleagues. These changes were initially announced at the Labour conference in September 2025. So we're now 14 months on. And it comes at a time when there's increasing public anxiety about these number of people who are going to be qualifying for citizenship on the existing scheme. I think the Mail did a front page a few weeks ago. It was 200 ,000 or so qualified for citizenship in the time that Shabana Mahmood is making this decision. and we now got the results today and I think what Tim was saying shows what the government is going to try and do which is to try and say yes we've got more sticks, we were less than we thought, we've got some carrots as well in terms of saying the migration sceptics look how much harder we're making it for refugees.

4:33Tim Shipman: I mean in theory if you've come here 30 years ago you could be a refugee under John Major's government and still not be qualifying for citizenship in the sense that you know it was 30 years ago if you've chosen not to work etc and be on a small boat then you will not be qualifying under the scheme. But overall, I think that it'll be a package that passes the Labour benches. For some, like Dan Abbott, it'll forever be comparisons with Windrush. Overall, though, it'll obviously disappoint those who were expecting her to try and stop what the Conservatives did in government. But I would urge anyone to sort of discussing these claims to look at the difference between Twitter and Blue Sky or X and Blue Sky.

5:08Tim Shipman: On X, obviously, this is a chorus of execration greeting these changes, suggesting that Shibana Amoud has sold out, people like Neil O 'Brien leading the charge. On Blue Sky, people are saying it's still a terrible package, talking about forced remigration, etc. And I think that does show the questions at the heart of this. What does it mean for values? What does it mean for fairness? I'd say that Shibana Amoud has a much more contributory principle and a much sort of more narrower concept to the welfare state at the heart of her politics than maybe some of her colleagues. I'd finally just say the term of her style, she clearly outclassed Chris Philp.

5:39Tim Shipman: A reminder, the difficulties of keeping Chris Philip in a job, I showed her Home Secretary when he was one of the Home Office ministers at the time of the Boris wave, the biggest ever migration wave to ever hit this country was happening. And I think it does show, as Tim just said, that the Labour benches were determined to support the Home Secretary today after a difficult few months. They were all in fine fettle and she gave a commando performance. Turning defeat into victory is the mark of a good politician and she showed that today. Whether the country will react like the Commons remains to be seen.

6:05James Heale: Well, I think that's right. I mean, the speech itself was pretty low-key, wasn't it, James? It felt like she was taking her medicine a little bit and it wasn't like sort of a commanding performance. But when Philip stood up and basically said, you know, you built up this reputation over a period of years for being tough and you've blown it all up in 12 minutes. She went for him. I mean, she could have, you know, I mean, she basically said, how dare you when you were in the home office when this, you know, ludicrous explosion of numbers happened. I mean I was in touch with one of her aides while this was going on I said is she about to jump across the dispatch box and lamp him one and he said I think she did.

6:47James Heale: And frankly she was then very bravura and she was getting support from her own side it was not exactly packed behind her. But as I say having those two sort of senior women there to sort of say to the Dianne Abbott's of this world this is an approved package. And what I'm hearing is that Louise Haig, behind the scenes, while she's considerably to the left of Shabana Mahmood on this stuff, has been very effective at banging heads together and trying to come to this deal that will hopefully, from their point of view, placate enough Labour MPs to get this package through largely unmolested. And as James says, you know, the key to it is, you know, he's trying to encourage useful migration.

7:25James Heale: It's trying to encourage people who want to come here, work hard and contribute to British society. It's trying to discourage people who want to come here, take the mickey and abuse our generosity. and from that point of view I think it will you know while it will never go down well with with people who just think you know we should basically stop migration altogether I think you know if you're trying to make a sort of Labour moral argument about how you do this in a slightly more decorous fashion I think I think she made a decent fist of it and when she was put on the back foot she came out absolutely swinging and I think a lot of MPs will look at that and think you know because we've not seen much of shabana mahoud she's been hiding away everyone's been saying oh she's the submarine now you know behaving like gordon brown used to behave when he was chancellor but this was a you know it was a punchy performance and i think those people who have wondered if shabana mahoud has slightly lost her mojo she was very lucky to be up against chris philp who is a sort of energizer bunny of politics but not always um someone who brings great gravitas to the dispatch box.

8:31Noa Hoffman: James, you recently completed a book about reform, yet to be published. How does Nigel Farage, with immigration being the set piece of, you know, his political sell to the country, how does he respond to this? How does Zia Yusuf, an absolute firebrand on this issue, come back on the points that Shabana Mahmood made?

8:56Tim Shipman: You use her own words against her. It was back in March that she was touting this figure from the Migration Advisory Committee that said the Boris wave was going to cost 10 billion. Where is that figure today? And so often with these statesmen know it's not just what they do say, it's what they don't say. And so clearly she's had a complete intellectual overhaul in this statement today. And I think that that's what we'll see in the coming days, which is hang on a sec. You were saying this a few months ago, Home Secretary, and I was saying this. You've caved. You're weak. And I say that's why she gave a good performance today on a sticky wicket.

9:22Tim Shipman: whether it means to be seen once we get the full scale the backlash from it i think will be much more challenging she talked a very tough game even times people were asked saying blimey she's going further than a lot of the conservative rights on this unfortunately now nigel farage can point holes in the statements that she's made and i suspect it'll be the kind of thing that we're hoping to get back on the front foot for if you look over the past decade or so when reform has seen spikes in its import often it coincides with the waves of immigration that have hit this country and And certainly the Boris wave has served as a way to kind of bind his fragmenting party over the past two years or so in terms of what unites everyone in reform is the scepticism of migration.

9:59Tim Shipman: What unites their political economy is that sense of immigrant versus native. What gets all the base fired up is migration, those questions of national culture. So I think he will be hopefully trying to, I think he will hope that this is going to serve as the fillet that he needs to pull this party out of the tailspin that they've been diving into for the past six months.

10:16Noa Hoffman: And Tim, in terms of Labour backbench reaction, as you said, part of the reason we see this carve out for care workers today was because of their fury at the initial plan. Is the issue now settled within the party or can we expect to see this rumble on a bit longer?

10:33James Heale: No, I think it will rumble on. I mean, you've seen people like Rachel Maskell, who led the benefits rebellion under Keir Starmer, agitating. There's various letters flying around. You know, Labour MPs don't like this stuff. They, you know, most, you know, I mean, Philp's sort of one line that might stick, he keeps using it, is the open borders left. And, you know, the left of the Labour Party fundamentally does not think there should be any restrictions on migration. They think it's not very nice. And they think that it's economically beneficial. I think most of the Labour leadership, including Andy Burnham, has concluded that there are social prices to pay for all of that.

11:06James Heale: And even the Office of Budget Responsibility has rejigged how it calculates the benefits of migration, realising that a lot of the migration that we've been having over the last few years has involved not terribly highly skilled people coming, bringing all their families and then staying for life. Whereas some of the migration that occurred when we had freedom of movement with the EU was more temporary, younger people earn some money and then go home again. you know not universally the case clearly and the numbers were getting wildly out of control even before the Boris wave but I think you know the Labour Party this this is a fundamental you know object of faith for a lot of them but you know if they want to win another general election I think most of the the same people at the top know that you have to have something tough now Labour is not going to be able to outflank reform or the Conservative Party on this they have much tougher repatriation policies and all the rest of it but I think if you want to try at the margins to nibble away at reform support, you need to be able to show that it's fair.

12:01James Heale: And I think what Mahmood has given MPs in red wall seats today is at least something they can talk to these people about on the doorstep and have conversation with voters who are sceptical about this and say, look, you know, we're a fair country here, and we do need and want some people to come. But you know, they're going to have to work, they're going to have to earn a decent sum of money. And we're incentivising them to do better and to pay more into British society. So, you know, I agree with James, it's still a conversation that Farage and co are going to be able to exploit. But I think, you know, if you're a Labour MP in a seat with a reform opponent, if the government generally performs well over the coming couple of years, if the economy picks up again, and you will at least be able to have something to say on the doorstep when when migration rears its head without shabana mahmoud i don't think that would be the case and yes there'll be a bunch of labour mps will fight tooth and nail but as i say i think you know we did not really know exactly what the color of andy burnham's money was going to be on this and the fact that his deputy party leader and his deputy prime minister was sitting next to the home secretary i think is indicative of the case that they will now try to dig in.

13:17Tim Shipman: If I could suggest the colour of the money, it would be fudge. And there is a noble tradition in Labour and British politics of fudging these questions. At the moment, the Labour Party seems willing to go along with said fudge, you know, and they're not making too much of an issue. By the end with Keir Starmer, you've got three of that ventures, you're thinking, here comes another U-turn. So I think at the moment, the Labour Party is prepared to give Andy Burnham and his ministers a lot of the doubt about these questions.

13:39James Heale: Well, they've taken this risk onto their own shoulders, haven't they? Andy Burnham is the leader of the Labour Party and the Prime Minister because Labour MPs wanted him to be and even they realise that kicking seven shades of fudge out of him at this stage is not possibly very useful there will be I would suspect there'll be a decent sized rebellion over this but I don't think it'll be big enough to derail it and you know famous last words but it feels like you know this has been gone through several iterations in private over a period of months there has been a public consultation Mahmood has got her ducks in a row legally by the sound of it she was very you know keen to stress that she'd you know was operating this in a way that has already been shown by the courts to be legally applicable and that was sort of hopefully from her point of view immuniser against judicial review and against anything else and ultimately they don't need primary legislation for this you know so while there'll be some kind of you know noise and you know crashing kind of objections from Labour MPs.

14:40James Heale: It's not like there's going to be some great white paper and bill where this is all going to get voted down.

14:45Tim Shipman: Ultimately, I'm sceptical about whether Labour can kind of win on migration. I think, as Tim was saying earlier, it's much more about getting the economy going, trying to offset some of the costs of migration and trying to soften that, the impact on society. Now, how does that rear its head? It could be something like a Black Swan event. I spoke to someone senior in reform last week who made the case that we're overdue a kind of Black Swan immigrant-related terror attack, for instance, someone who's coming on this country in small boats from God knows where in the Middle East, that could then get that question up back at the top of the agenda.

15:19Tim Shipman: Overall, I think trying to take some unfairness, blame this on the Tories, that's probably their best view right now. And I think it's interesting coming at the time when Rachel Reeves is making a bit of her appearance in America talking about actually she was the one who took on the tough decision of the past two years or so. She's the one who got the money public sending going into the system, which is now beginning to bear fruits. There are some people in Labour who think that the economy will do a bit better than expected. And if that's the case, the thinking will be at the top of government.

15:46Tim Shipman: Things aren't as bad as they were. It's not really about questions about who's taking your job, etc. We can all share the proceeds together. And that might just be enough to win Andy Burnham a few more years in number 10.

15:55James Heale: Yeah, I mean, I think it basically boils down to Labour aren't going to win on this issue, but it feels probably like because Shibana Mahmoud has stopped the bleeding at least.

16:04Noa Hoffman: Well, we shall watch this policy area very closely and there is plenty of more issues for Labour to row over to come. We've still got the 10-year plan, we've still got the Milburn review, which we will be dissecting on the podcast as ever. Thank you, James, thank you, Tim, and thank you for listening to Coffeehouse Shots.

16:33Thank you.

17:02Tim Shipman: tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. That's goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini.