Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has called for stricter controls on both legal and illegal immigration, arguing that the current system is unfair to hardworking British citizens
In a piece published in the Daily Mail UK, Badenoch wrote: “The issue of immigration is a simple one for the Conservative Party: we need to crack down on it in every form, both legal and illegal.”
She continued, “For me, this is about basic fairness. Britain today seems to work more favourably for those who jump the queue, who break the rules, who get into our country illegally but then denigrate our customs and our culture.”
Badenoch criticized a system she says rewards those who exploit it, while burdening those who contribute to society. “Those of us who work hard and do the right thing, hoping one day to leave a better life for our children, are left footing the bill,” she said.
She highlighted the high cost of asylum accommodation, noting: “The billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money we are spending to put asylum seekers up in hotels, for example, is well known.”
But she pointed to what she described as a more troubling issue: “Less well known, however, is the fact that low-paid immigrants and refugees who stay here for five years qualify for ‘indefinite leave to remain’. This allows them to claim the same benefits British citizens are entitled to, such as social housing and Universal Credit—whether they’ve paid into the system or not.”
“To my mind, that is fundamentally unfair to all the hard-working Brits who have dutifully paid into the system – and I’m determined to stop it,” she added.
Badenoch also accused the Labour Government of blocking key reforms. She condemned Labour’s opposition to the Conservative Deportation Bill, which would have capped immigration numbers, extended the benefit qualification period for immigrants from five to ten years, and applied the same ten-year rule to citizenship.
The bill also proposed to bar anyone who had claimed benefits from receiving indefinite leave to remain and would have allowed the government to revoke settled status from any immigrant who commits a crime.
“All in all, that Bill was designed to protect our borders and uphold fairness in our benefits system,” Badenoch wrote. “But thanks to Labour, it was shot down.”
She acknowledged the legal hurdles that have derailed past immigration policies, including the failed Rwanda deportation plan: “To be honest, many – if not all – of the measures it contained would probably have ended up going the same way as the former government’s abandoned scheme to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda.”
She blamed the setbacks on legal interference, saying policies have been “bogged down in our courts and frustrated by unnamed foreign judges interpreting the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).”
“Other potentially transformative policies of ours have floundered in similar ways,” she added.
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