{"id":501922,"date":"2025-10-15T16:36:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T16:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/501922\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T16:36:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T16:36:18","slug":"immigrants-in-london-voice-concerns-as-labour-propose-tougher-policies-against-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/501922\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigrants in London voice concerns as Labour propose tougher policies against immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood expected to admit the UK has lost control of its borders at a summit in London later today<\/strong>, immigrants in the capital have accused the government of catering to the Right.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the past week, Labour has strewn across a slate of policy proposals including the controversial \u2018Brit card\u2019, a requirement for all migrants to hold A-Level standard English to work, and an unprecedented 32% increase in the immigration skills charge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Immigrants across the city spoke to the Londoners on what they think of Labour\u2019s immigration policies.<\/p>\n

Maryam Osman, 27, a student at Kings College London said: \u201cIn all honesty, I do think immigrants should be able to speak English \u2013 just as much for their own wellbeing as for the public\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there are already IELTs and a BI English requirement to work here, so I would ask the government who will be funding the services to help immigrants in this country get to a higher level?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re living in a Britain with so many issues, I don\u2019t think that a minor policy change to how well some people in this country speak English should be a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sentiment that Mahmood\u2019s policies are a reaction to an increasingly hostile political climate was shared by several interviewees.<\/p>\n

Haniya Akhtar, 42, an immigrant working as a teacher in London said: \u201cI think Labour is simply piggy-backing off of the traction that Farage is getting \u2013 these policies towards immigrants are a clear attempt to cater to the far-right and regain popularity with the working class.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncreasing the costs to firms hiring immigrants is practically discriminatory \u2013 international students are paying an extortionate amount to learn here, only to find out that nobody wants to hire them.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Britain under Labour is supposed to have opportunities for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Questions about where Mahmood\u2019s policies will lead were echoed concerning further proposed changes to the immigration skills charge.<\/p>\n

Amaan Qureshi, 26, an immigrant working as a consultant at Ernest & Young said: \u201cWhat the government\u2019s changes to the immigration skills charge will essentially do is raise the cost of hiring an immigrant from \u00a348,000 to \u00a351,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a policy that feels a lot like Trump\u2019s H-1B visa, where a $100,000 fee has been imposed on any applications for visas in higher-skilled jobs \u2013 a clear attempt to just get immigrants out of jobs that pay well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would not surprise me if this 30% increase is simply the first step in an attempt to enact a similarly dystopian change here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Featured image credit: Andy Taylor via Wikimedia Commons <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood expected to admit the UK has lost control of its borders at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,35015,4884,17767,257,386,60422,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-501922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-farage","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-immigrants","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-reform-uk","15":"tag-shabana-mahmood","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115379161229994968","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}