The UK’s “Open Border Experiment” Is Reversible

Authored by Sam Bidwell via The Critic,

As Keir Starmer lambasts the “open borders experiment” of the past few years, are Britain’s politicians finally waking up to the scale of our immigration crisis?

With the latest figures from the ONS showing that net migration to Britain stood at more than 700,000 in 2024, with total incoming migration standing at more than 1.2 million, it’s long past time that substantive action was taken. If, as the Prime Minister said last week, our experiment with mass migration has been a mistake, then politicians have a duty to atone for their wrongdoing. Naturally, that means revising our visa rules in the first place, making it more difficult for new immigrants to come to this country — but even if we change those rules, we are still left with an almighty conundrum.

Under the current immigration rules, most migrants on work and family visas will be eligible for Indefinite Leave To Remain (ILR) status after just five years. ILR status holders have a right to live and work indefinitely in the UK — and gain access to additional support from the state, in the form of services like universal credit. ILR status is also tricky to remove, without amending the Nationality, Immigration, and Asylum Act 2002.

Combine this legal mechanism with a migration wave of several million people, and the result is a slow-motion fiscal car crash. Fail to act now, and in less than five years, millions of low-wage, low-skilled workers will be eligible for a lifetime of support from the British state. After just a few short years in the workforce, the British taxpayer could be left on the hook for a migrant’s benefits, social housing costs, healthcare, state pension — and the cost of any dependents that they choose to bring to the UK. This would, effectively, lock in this migration wave — deepening the fiscal impact of migration, and making it more legally challenging to remove those who came here over the past few years.

At a time when the UK already has limited fiscal headroom thanks to years of sluggish growth, is it fair to add billions of pounds in additional costs to the burden carried by the British taxpayer?

As research from the excellent Karl Williams at the Centre for Policy Studies shows, just 5 percent of work visas handed out in 2022-23 were given to migrants likely to be net contributors — with 72 percent of “skilled work visa” holders earning less than the UK average salary.

The OBR’s analysis admits that the average low-wage migrant worker costs the taxpayer £465,000 by the time they reach the age of 81.

Now, imagine millions of these low-wage migrant workers, all gaining eligibility for a lifetime of support from the state — clearly, our current ILR rules are not fit for purpose. 

Fortunately, revision of those rules is actually relatively easy.

As I argue in my recent research for the Adam Smith Institute, the Home Secretary has the power to change the conditions for ILR by issuing a Statement Of Changes In Immigration Rules, using their powers under the Immigration Act 1971 to change rules around entry and settlement. Unless Parliament passes a resolution within forty days condemning the changes, then those new rules pass into law — it really is as simple as that.

The Home Secretary could change the standard eligibility criteria for ILR from five years to fifteen, while leaving the five-year rule in place for migrants from the United States, the European Union, the Anglosphere, and the Asian Tiger economies. This distinction would help to ensure that Britain remains a competitive destination for high-value, high-skilled migrants, while addressing the bulk of migrants, from countries like India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. As my oven-ready legislative framework makes clear, Parliament might also choose to signal its support for the Home Secretary by passing a bespoke ouster clause, shielding these changes from pernicious judicial review. In our increasingly litigious culture, one can never be too careful.

This wouldn’t be the first revision of ILR rules, either — in 2006, then-Home Secretary Charles Clarke changed the eligibility time from four years to five. Nor would it leave Britain as a European outlier; in recent years, the Netherlands has extended its own settlement eligibility period from five years to ten, and Sweden has created new rules to allow the Government to revoke settled status from migrants.

For those of us concerned about the long-term social and fiscal impact of migration, a revision of the ILR rules is the best short-term use of our energy; the savings to the taxpayer speak for themselves. It would also give the Government time and space to think about whether or not it wants to reissue visas to those who arrived over the last few years. After all, a five year visa grant does not entitle an individual to a lifetime of residence in the UK — access to this country is time-limited by design. If the Government feels that mass migration has been a mistake, then it would be well-within its rights to refuse to reissue visas to low-skilled workers who arrived since 2021. This becomes much easier if our ILR rules are revised, preventing long-term settlement in the first instance.

The question is not one of possibility — as my research lays out, this change is both practically possible and politically defensible. It would probably also be enormously popular with the public — at a time when trust in politicians is already low, this would represent the most substantive policy intervention on migration for decades.

The question is one of political will, and sincerity of conviction. If Keir Starmer and his colleagues are serious about addressing uncontrolled mass migration, then they have a duty to lay these changes before Parliament. If this experiment really has been a mistake, then why should the British people live with the impacts for decades to come? If they fail to do so, then we can only assume that their platitudes about addressing this issue were just that — platitudes, empty words designed to comfort a frustrated electorate.

As a country, we deserve better than that — we deserve real action. It’s time to address Britain’s impending ILR crisis.