Badenoch Backs Tougher UK Immigration Rules, Opposes Automatic Settlement
Leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has thrown her weight behind the Labour government’s proposed 10-year qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain (ILR), insisting that temporary work visas should not automatically lead to permanent settlement in Britain.
Badenoch made her position known in a post on her X account on Monday while releasing a letter addressed to the UK’s Home Secretary, in which she criticised moves by some Labour lawmakers to water down the proposed immigration reforms.
“People who come to Britain on temporary work visas should not automatically be able to stay forever,” she wrote.
“This Labour government was right to make that harder. Now their MPs want them to U-turn. Conservatives will back Labour’s original plan to help get it through Parliament.”
In the jointly signed letter with Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, the Conservative Party warned against reports that the government was considering exempting about two million migrants who arrived in the UK on work visas between 2021 and the present from the proposed changes.
Describing such a move as “a grave mistake,” Badenoch argued that Britain had previously paid the price for allowing migrants to obtain permanent settlement too quickly.
“As Conservatives learned to our cost, five years is too short a time to obtain the indefinite right to remain in the UK,” the letter stated.
She further argued that many migrants currently employed in low-paid and low-skilled jobs could eventually be replaced by economically inactive British citizens if more employment opportunities were created.
According to Badenoch, migrants who fail to make what she described as a significant economic contribution over a 10-year period should return to their home countries once their temporary work visas expire.
“Individuals who are not making a significant economic contribution over a ten-year period should not be allowed to stay indefinitely. Those not working, or working in low-paid jobs, should be required to go home at the end of their temporary work visa,” she said.
Badenoch also maintained that granting indefinite leave to remain after just five years places additional pressure on Britain’s welfare system, as beneficiaries become eligible for social benefits and may later apply for British citizenship.
She rejected suggestions that extending the qualifying period to 10 years would amount to changing the rules retrospectively, arguing that temporary work visas do not confer an automatic right to permanent residence.
“The government is perfectly entitled to decide at any time the rules on indefinite rights of settlement, including in relation to those here already,” she said.
Offering cross-party support, Badenoch said the Conservative Party would vote in favour of Labour’s original immigration proposals if they were presented without amendments.
“If you table the proposals set out last autumn in undiluted form, either in the Immigration Rules or as part of the Immigration and Asylum Bill, we will support them,” the letter added.
She said Labour’s handling of the proposed reforms would ultimately determine whether the party was genuinely committed to tightening immigration controls and strengthening Britain’s borders.
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