Britian has been crippled by an exponentially worsening immigration crisis since the 1990s, but the nation’s typically-progressive prime minister has a plan to tackle the problem. On Monday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, head of the dominant Labour Party, announced that his administration has drafted a policy plan to significantly limit immigration to the U.K.

“Today, we publish a white paper on immigration, a strategy absolutely central to my plan for change that will finally take back control of our borders and close the book on a squalid chapter for our politics, our economy, and our country,” Starmer said in a press conference. He called previous administrations’ immigration policies a “one-nation experiment in open borders conducted on a country that voted for control. Well, no more. Today, this Labour government is shutting down the lab. The experiment is over. We will deliver what you’ve asked for time and again, and we will take back control of our borders.”

“‘Take back control.’ Everyone knows that slogan and everyone knows what it meant on immigration,” the prime minister said, referring to a popular Conservative Party campaign catchphrase. He lambasted the Conservatives, who had been in power from early 2010 until July of last year. “What followed from the previous government, starting with the people who used that slogan, was the complete opposite,” Starmer said. He continued, “Between 2019 and 2023, even as they were going around our country telling people with a straight face that they would get immigration down, net migration quadrupled until in 2023 it reached nearly one million. That’s about the population of Birmingham, our second-largest city. That’s not control, it’s chaos.”

“Nations depend on rules. Fair rules. Sometimes they’re written down, often they’re not. But either way, they give shape to our values, guide us towards our rights, of course, but also our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to each other,” Starmer explained. He continued, “Now, in a diverse nation like ours — and I celebrate that — these rules become even more important. Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.” The prime minister observed:

“So when you have an immigration system that seems almost designed to permit abuse, that encourages some businesses to bring in lower-paid workers rather than invest in our young people, or simply one that is sold by politicians to the British people on an entirely false premise, then you’re not championing growth, you’re not championing justice, or else people defend the status quo. You’re actually contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart. … I believe we need to reduce immigration significantly.”

To achieve that goal, Starmer’s administration released an 82-page “blueprint” for reshaping government policies related to immigration. In order to save more British jobs for the British, the government will significantly raise the threshold for imported “skilled workers,” immigrants brought into the U.K. and paid lower wages than British employees would be. The U.K.’s Immigration Salary List, which identifies occupations wherein British employers can hire foreign workers and pay them reduced wages, will also be abolished, and employers who are approved for hiring foreign workers will also be required to develop and implement plans for increasing the hiring of British workers. Additionally, fees paid by employers for hiring foreign workers will also be increased. The government plan will also reform the use of “over complex family and private life immigration arrangements,” which the white paper identifies as an area prone to abuse, particularly in the case of violent immigrants avoiding deportation.

The new government policy will also address the abuse of asylum claims. “New policies will apply to individuals who claim asylum where conditions in their home country have not materially changed, particularly where they have claimed asylum after arrival. Tighter visa controls, restrictions, requirements or scrutiny will be applied where we have evidence of abuse, based on a clear assessment of the risks,” a government press release clarified. Additional policies include introducing penalties for U.K.-based individuals or organizations who sponsor immigrants who overstay their visas, increasing the requirements for obtaining legal permanent residency and citizenship, expanding deportations, and, notably, introducing “new English language requirements across a broader range of immigration routes, for both main applicants and their [dependents], to ensure a better knowledge of English, including an assessment of improvements over time.”

In his Monday press conference, Starmer acknowledged that immigration has been a “part of Britain’s national story” at various times in history, particularly noting the contributions of immigrants following the World Wars. He continued, “But when people come to our country, they should also commit to integration, to learning our language, and our system should actively distinguish between those that do and those that don’t. I think that’s fair.” The prime minister also emphasized only importing high-skilled foreign workers instead of any and all foreign workers who are willing to work for poverty wages. “We do have to ask why parts of our economy seem almost addicted to importing cheap labor, rather than investing in the skills of people who are here and want a good job in their community,” he said. He asked:

“Sectors like engineering, where visas have rocketed while apprenticeships have plummeted — is that fair to Britain? Is that fair to young people weighing up their future, to miss out on those apprenticeships? To see colleges in their community almost entirely dedicated to one-year courses for overseas students? No, I do not think that it is.”

The government also announced plans to increase border security and ensure that other nations — such as France — do not facilitate illegal immigration routes to British shores. However, the details of that stage of the government’s new immigration policy have yet to be formally announced. Already, Starmer’s administration has begun carrying out deportations at a significantly higher rate than his Conservative predecessors, removing nearly 17,000 illegal immigrants between July 2024 and January 2025.

Increasing immigration has been a problem for the U.K., worsening over the past several decades. A Home Office report in 2005 estimated that there were as many as nearly 600,000 illegal immigrants living in Britain. The rise of illegal immigration worsened significantly in the late 2010s as non-British — mostly adult men — illegally arrived on British shores in boats, after setting out from Calais, France. According to government statistics, approximately 160,000 illegal immigrants entered the U.K. between 2018 and mid-2024. As of 2017, the Pew Research Center estimated that there were as many as 1.2 million illegal immigrants living in the U.K., and a 2020 study from the University of Wolverhampton’s Institute for Community Research and Development reported that nearly a quarter million children in the U.K. were born to illegal immigrant parents.

Starmer’s response to the immigration crisis has proven controversial, earning criticism from both the political Right and Left. Conservative Party Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said that the Labour Party’s immigration plan “doesn’t amount to much,” criticizing Starmer’s proposed measures for not introducing enough restrictions on immigration. Labour Party parliamentarian Sarah Owen also criticized Starmer’s plan for being too restrictive on immigration. She said that Starmer’s policies will put the U.K. on “a very dark path” and accused the prime minister of “blaming all the woes of our country on immigrants…” Other progressives have compared Starmer’s press conference remarks to the speeches of the controversial former Health Secretary and immigration hard-liner Enoch Powell.

In comments to The Washington Stand, Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, warned that Starmer’s policy shift might only be politically performative, capitalizing on British dissatisfaction with mass immigration. “Like Americans, the British people have realized that their country cannot sustain the volume of immigration that it has experienced the past several years,” she said. Ries continued, “Mass immigration erodes sovereignty, has provided a pathway for violent criminals and terrorists to enter the U.K., and without assimilation, leads to balkanization of the U.K.” She observed, “This was the basis for Prime Minister Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ comment yesterday. While Starmer sees a political opportunity to claim the mantle of immigration reform and border control, the public should be highly skeptical that he believes his own words or that he will deliver upon them for the British people.”

According to a January YouGov survey, over 70% of Brits said that immigration rates in the U.K. are “too high,” including 50% who said immigration rates are “much too high.” A 2023 Migration Watch U.K. poll found that over half of Brits supported a five-year pause on all immigration, and 42% said that immigration is “making Britain a worse place to live.” Meanwhile, a plurality (41%) of Brits agreed with Starmer’s Monday rhetoric on immigration, according to another YouGov poll, compared to 12% who agreed with his message but disliked his rhetoric and 18% who disagreed with the prime minister’s messaging and disliked his rhetoric. However, 41% also said that they did not expect Starmer’s new policies to meaningfully address immigration levels, compared to only 20% who said that they believe the policy shift will limit immigration.