{"id":104137,"date":"2026-08-15T14:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/104137\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T14:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:57:09","slug":"the-reform-led-county-that-exposes-britains-hidden-migration-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/104137\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reform-led county that exposes Britain’s hidden migration crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Melanie Weatherley, chief executive of a Lincolnshire-based home care<\/a> agency, started recruiting workers from overseas in 2022, the first vacancies she filled were in Skegness. <\/p>\n

\u201cCan you imagine anywhere worse?\u201d she says. This is the constituency that recorded the UK\u2019s biggest Leave vote in 2016 \u2013 more than 75 per cent \u2013 and that in 2024 elected Reform\u2019s<\/a> deputy leader Richard Tice<\/a> as its MP.<\/p>\n

Anti-migrant<\/a> sentiment runs high, and Weatherley did not know how carers from Africa and South Asia would be received \u2013 but service-users surprised her by almost universally accepting them.<\/p>\n

One elderly client at Walnut Care, Weatherley\u2019s agency, said she had never been called \u201cma\u2019am\u201d before. The biggest issue, in fact, was that many carers were confused by requests to make toast or defrost frozen food \u2013 neither were part of their own food cultures.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re considered useless by most service-users if you can\u2019t make a decent piece of toast,\u201d says Weatherley. Walnut Care added toast and freezer meals to their induction for new recruits. <\/p>\n

The big picture<\/p>\n

Between 2019 and 2023, net migration<\/a> to the UK rose from 200,000 annually to nearly 1 million, according to ONS figures. Along with care workers, this included one-off humanitarian schemes for Ukrainians fleeing the war, Hongkongers escaping Beijing\u2019s crackdown as well as post-Covid increases in health workers and students.<\/p>\n

The situation was widely seen as unsustainable, and most changes were reversed in early 2024 by the Conservatives. Salary requirements for skilled worker visas increased, students and care workers were stopped from bringing their families with them. <\/p>\n

In 2025, Labour banned all new overseas care worker recruitment and placed further limitations on student visas. <\/p>\n

That same year, net migration fell to 171,000, one of the sharpest drops on record. But as parties pledging lower migration continue to attract significant support, just 16 per cent of the public believes migration has fallen at all, according to a survey of 3,000 adults carried out by the non-partisan think-tank British Future.<\/p>\n

\"Ingoldmells,Nowhere is the contradiction sharper than Lincolnshire, a county dominated by Reform\u2019s anti-migrant politics (Photo: Getty)<\/p>\n

Right now, the real migration crisis is not that huge numbers are arriving; it\u2019s that the boom has ended and no one has planned for what happens next.<\/p>\n

Nowhere is the contradiction sharper than Lincolnshire, a county dominated by Reform\u2019s anti-migrant politics, where the care system, university and agricultural sector all run on the foreign labour that the majority of its voters want to reduce. <\/p>\n

Most policy decisions relating to migration rest with central Government, but this September the combined authority takes control of a \u00a317-19m adult skills budget, including the pot that funds English lessons.<\/p>\n

Improving workers\u2019 English is key to integration and finding work. But in Greater Lincolnshire, the Reform-led authority voted in February to scrap ESOL English courses from 2027, despite a public consultation in which 73 per cent disagreed. <\/p>\n

Reform UK\u2019s Dame Andrea Jenkyns said the money would be reallocated to improve literacy across the county and to get people into work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want Lincolnshire to be a beacon and make sure no one is illiterate,\u201d she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. 200,000 people are illiterate in our county. We have to do something \u2013 I will not stand idly by and let that happen on my watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will design our new qualification with the business community, higher education and further education to give these people a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Universities see decline in foreign applications <\/p>\n

Turning off the tap with no plan to replace lost revenue or labour can have clear and immediate effects. This is evident in the university sector, which is reliant on the higher fees paid by international students. After most students were barred from bringing their partners and children in 2024, international applications dropped.<\/p>\n

That year, nearly one in four universities cut budgets and staff. At the University of Lincoln \u2013 the institution often credited with rebuilding the city \u2013 applications from international students halved after the 2024 ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a small city like Lincoln, these huge cuts threaten to undermine the fabric of the region,\u201d says Joe Rooney, from the University and College Union. The university, squeezed between frozen tuition fees and immigration policy changes, is now in a fourth consecutive year of job cuts.<\/p>\n

\u201cUniversities rely on the higher fees paid by international students, and there just isn\u2019t a plan for replacing that revenue,\u201d says one lecturer at the University of Lincoln. \u201cWe\u2019re all afraid for our jobs, but it\u2019s not just us, the whole local economy will suffer if the university fails.\u201d <\/p>\n

A spokesperson from the University of Lincoln said the institution is \u201cfinancially stable\u201d, and is \u201ctaking deliberate decisions now to ensure it remains sustainable for the future\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Lincoln,Applications at the University of Lincoln from international students halved after the 2024 ban (Photo: Getty)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been reshaping the university to reflect these changing patterns of demand and income, ensuring our resources are aligned with areas where we can make the greatest impact for our region and beyond,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

The drop in numbers of foreign care workers has been even more drastic: in the first quarter of 2026, just 11 care worker visas were issued \u2013 a route that at its peak in 2023 granted 106,000 visas in a single year, according to Migration Observatory.<\/p>\n

Recruiting British people to these jobs has proved difficult \u2013 the pay is poor and the work considered low-status \u2013 and some in the sector worry that a cliff edge is coming in 2028.<\/p>\n

Yet, the impact of this change has been slower than in the university sector, because care agencies can still legally recruit overseas workers from the pool of people already here. During the peak of international care worker recruitment, a significant number of rogue sponsors charged people to come to the UK for jobs that did not exist.<\/p>\n

When the Home Office cracked down, revoking at least 470 sponsor licences, some 39,000 people were left out of work. Care agencies can theoretically hire from this group until 2028, but in March 2027, funding for government-funded regional hubs set up to match displaced workers to legitimate employers is due to shut down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Home Office would like us to find jobs for all of them by the end of next week, but it\u2019s not going to happen,\u201d says Weatherley, who alongside running her own care agency is chair of the Lincolnshire Care Association. Some workers are far from the vacancies; some are traumatised; others can\u2019t drive or speak good English. <\/p>\n

Overseas recruits fill most care vacancies<\/p>\n

In Lincolnshire \u2013 where a quarter of residents are over 65 \u2013 most care vacancies are still being filled by overseas recruits, because the low cost of living means people can survive on a carer\u2019s salary, which is typically minimum wage, around \u00a312 per hour. Nationally, though, the hubs had placed just 3.4 per cent of workers referred to them by mid-2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we took the visas away tomorrow, I don\u2019t know what we would do,\u201d Weatherley says. \u201cThe sector would not cope.\u201d Farming, the county\u2019s other migrant-dependent industry, kept its seasonal visa; it has been extended to 2030 after heavy lobbying, partly because seasonal workers by definition go home. <\/p>\n

This is a local example of a national problem, whereby punitive policy announcements \u2013 such as a still-unlegislated proposal to make people wait 15 rather than five years before they can apply for permanent settlement \u2013 deliberately make Britain a less appealing place for migrants.<\/p>\n

This is a key pillar of Shabana Mahmood\u2019s proposed immigration reforms, although Andy Burnham, since becoming Prime Minister, is reportedly weighing an exemption for care workers.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s migration boom has ended, without a clear plan for the people, places and industries left behind; no new funding model for universities to offset the loss of international students\u2019 fees; no investment in recruiting domestic care staff or plan for a more controlled visa route. This is Britain\u2019s real migration crisis, and the full impact has yet to be seen.<\/p>\n

\"SeniorIn Lincolnshire \u2013 where a quarter of residents are over 65 \u2013 most care vacancies are still being filled by overseas recruits (Photo: Getty)<\/p>\n

A Government spokesperson said: \u201cOverseas recruitment for care workers closed after unacceptable levels of abuse. We will always welcome those that come to this country and contribute to our national life. But our earned settlement reforms ensure that the right to live here forever must be earned.\u201d<\/p>\n

A University of Lincoln spokesperson said: \u201cThe university is financially stable and is taking deliberate decisions now to ensure it remains sustainable. Changes to dependant visa rules, other visa restrictions, and currency fluctuations have affected demand from some overseas markets. We have been reshaping the university to reflect these patterns \u2013 including changes to our workforce, but also diversifying income through apprenticeships and growth in dentistry, agri-tech and defence and security. The university employs more people now than before the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey haven\u2019t come as scroungers,\u201d says Weatherley, of the care workers she recruited. \u201cThey left their families to support our families, and we don\u2019t recognise that at a policy level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Melanie Weatherley, chief executive of a Lincolnshire-based home care agency, started recruiting workers from overseas in 2022,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,6908,432,958,408],"class_list":["post-104137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","tag-britain","tag-lincolnshire","tag-migration","tag-reform","tag-reform-uk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117100114303662096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}