Much like a broken record, immigration policy announcements in Britain since 2010 have been stuck on introducing stricter rules and harsher deterrents to cut migration figures. Yet, when reflecting on outcomes, these efforts appear to consistently take one step forward and two steps back in achieving that goal. In a post-Brexit world, it might seem that the government would have more control than ever over migration. Yet, since migration hit a low during the pandemic, migration levels have surged to record highs despite the proportion of immigrants coming from the EU dropping drastically from 63% to just 11%. The crusade to cut migration has been driven by British attitudes. British voters are substantially in favour of less migration despite being evenly split on whether they think migration is beneficial or not for Britain.

British Immigration policy has become so consumed by the goal to reduce migration that to solve the problem we need to go back to go back to the problem setting stage. Donald Schön’s key paper on social policy argues that the most critical part of the policy framework is the initial framing of the policy problem, as that is what will determine what the policy responses will be. Given that the problem of migration is framed in terms of high migration being considered negatively, increases in migration lead to ever more draconian and cruel solutions to solve the problem. The issue with this is that migration isn’t naturally static and fluctuates as global and domestic trends take place. Therefore, to root out the moral decay of immigration policy, the problem needs to be reframed in a way that doesn’t judge the success of immigration policy by numerical means.

Brief History of Conservative Flagship Migration Policies

In 2010, David Cameron’s Government famously committed to reducing migration to the tens of thousands; something it was unsuccessful in. The hostile environment policy introduced in 2012 by then Home Secretary Theresa May was in pursuit of achieving that target. This was an immigrant policy, as opposed to an immigration policy, which focused on reducing migration by making life tougher for migrants residing in the UK. It granted powers to specific groups such as banks, landlords and local authorities to take responsibility in carrying out greater due diligence and act against illegal migrants in the hope they would deport themselves. For legal migrants, rigorous checks made life more difficult and the hostility in the form of ‘go home’ vans sent signals to those same migrants that they weren’t wanted.

After Brexit, the government was able to create policies for EU nationals and thus the focus shifted from an immigrant policy framework to an immigration policy framework. The Johnson Government introduced a points based system to handle migration which was a significant change for EU nationals, but not all too different for the existing system for non-EU nationals. Crucially this ended routes for ‘unskilled’ labour, a key block to potentially large numbers of migrants.

The ongoing flagship immigration policy is the controversial Rwanda Policy. This policy would see some asylum claims processed in Rwanda and those asylum seekers given residency there, as opposed to the UK. It is hoped this will be a strong deterrent against small boat crossings which have become a key concern. Unlike the other flagship policies, this policy has been unsuccessful in implementation as the courts have deemed Rwanda an unsafe country to send asylum seekers too.

Why the New Rules demonstrate the problem to its fullest.

With still rising migration, the government have introduced even stricter rules for migrants in 2024. For instance, the new rules will severely increase the salary threshold by £12,500 to £38,700 per annum and remove the discount for salaries in occupations where there are national shortages. Throughout their time in government, the Conservatives have balanced the need to satisfy the electorate’s demand for less migration, and business’ strong economic argument in favour of migration. By raising the salary threshold, the government have moved strongly towards prioritising less migration over business interests in cheaper skilled labour.

Another dimension to the unending goal of reducing migration has been new rules to clamp down on dependents. Under the new rules students and care workers are no longer be able to bring dependents to Britain. In particular for care workers, for which there is a high job vacancy rate, this indicates that the system prefers less care workers if it meant that there were no ‘excess’ migrants coming in as dependents as a result.

The harsh approach to dependents has already seen mothers and their children split up due to children not being given visas. Stopping people from bringing dependents neglects the reality that migrants have lives and are no less valuable because they have families. After all, having children may well encourage moving to a country like Britain with higher rates of pay. By not encouraging people to put down roots in Britain, we are continuing a trend of ignoring migrant experience in immigration policymaking. The negative impacts of neglecting migrant experience can be laid to bare in the failures that encouraged the Windrush Scandal. The hostile environment policies introduced by the Cameron Government both made life more difficult for the Windrush generation of migrants and disproportionately affected South Asians, rather than nationalities which have higher rates of illegal migration. As a result, this policy has a cruel racialised effect on migrants which lowered its effectiveness and took away dignity.

By pivoting the problem away from stopping high levels of net migration to something new, immigration policies may go from becoming increasingly cruel and inhumane, and instead focus on creating a positive story for immigration. Whereas focusing on net migration led governments to make the problem one-dimensional and assessed on one metric which led to worsened lives of migrants and damaged national economic interests, by ditching this framework a wider plethora of issues may be given a chance to discuss, migrants can regain their dignity, and economic benefits may emerge.

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