22 October 2026 - 1:30pm
Shabana Mahmood’s immigration reforms are in danger of being killed by her own party. With Angela Rayner and Miatta Fahnbulleh raising objections, and Andy Burnham reportedly considering exemptions for care workers, the Home Secretary’s plans to make migrants wait longer for permanent settlement look increasingly vulnerable. Labour has been here before: announce a tough reform, provoke a backbench revolt, then retreat.
But history is not doomed to repeat itself. For one thing, why would Burnham keep Mahmood at the Home Office only to neuter one of her flagship policies? Nor should we forget the Prime Minister’s much-vaunted “Makerfield test”: his promise to judge government decisions by whether they improve life for his constituents in the white, working-class, former coalfield constituency. We hear less about this nowadays, but it ought to matter here — Makerfield voters want immigration controlled.
They are hardly alone. Recent polling shows that 69% of Britons believe immigration has been too high over the past decade, including 53% of those who voted Labour in 2024. Indeed, 43% now think immigration has been mostly bad for Britain, 10 points higher than in 2016. Immigration is not just an obsession for those on the Right, despite what Labour backbenchers might want to believe.
There is also a practical problem with abandoning Mahmood’s reforms, particularly for social care. Under Boris Johnson, Britain opened the doors to an extraordinary influx of care workers and their dependants. The Home Office estimates 616,000 people arrived through the Health and Care visa route between 2022 and 2024. As a result, many are now approaching the point at which they might qualify for indefinite leave to remain (ILR).
Mahmood wants the usual qualifying period extended from five to 10 years, with a proposed 15-year route for lower-skilled workers, including care staff. Without those changes, large numbers of these “Boriswave” migrants could secure ILR and promptly leave social care for better-paid jobs elsewhere.
The result would be predictable. Employers will complain of a staffing crisis, and Labour backbenchers and industry lobbyists would demand that ministers reopen overseas recruitment to fill vacancies cheaply. Britain would once again use immigration to avoid fixing a broken domestic labour market. Round and round we go.
There could be fiscal consequences too. As has been noted, a care worker earning £25,000, with one child and £1,000 monthly rent, could receive around £12,000 annually in benefits after settlement. Under ILR, there is no obligation to work. If Burnham throws Mahmood to the wolves, he’d be undermining his own attempts to reduce the benefit bill.
The better response is to make care work worth doing for Brits. Some estimate that increasing real wages by 5% could boost employment by between 9 and 11%. Better contracts, training and substantial long-service bonuses would help retain staff. This would cost money, especially for cash-strapped councils, but endlessly importing workers is not a substitute for properly funding the sector.
And then there is politics. Retreat would hand Reform (and the Conservatives) a devastating attack line: Burnham knows there is a problem with immigration, but he lacks the backbone to tackle it. Mahmood’s reforms alone will not cut arrivals, and they will not magically end public concern. But they could help restore credibility to a system voters no longer trust. So Burnham has a choice: face down his party now, or explain later why Britain is still trapped in the same cycle of cheap labour, high immigration and broken promises.
