British PM Issues Plan to Cap Migration As Election Looms

(Carl Court/Getty Images)

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took aim Monday at one of his country’s most pressing needs heading into the July 4 election, saying he will introduce a cap on immigration levels if he is reelected.

Sunak’s conservative Tory Party is trailing in the polls to the more liberal Labour Party, which reportedly has put forward an amnesty plan for asylum seekers.

“We have taken bold action to cut the number of people coming to this country,” Sunak said, according to the Independent. “The plan is working but migration levels are still too high, so we are going further.

“Labour’s migrant amnesty will make the U.K. a global magnet for illegal immigrants, and they have no plan to reduce net migration, while we have a clear plan to stop the boats and put a legal cap on numbers. The Conservatives are the only party that is willing take the bold action needed to cut immigration figures.”

The centerpiece of the new proposal is a limit on the number of visas issued each year, which could leave some companies with no choice but to train British workers to fill vacancies, the Daily Mail reported. The annual cap will be voted on by members of Parliament and reduced yearly throughout the next Parliament.

Sunak said the plan would build on existing measures that are expected to slash migrant numbers by about 300,000 this year, the Daily Mail reported. The new cap would apply to those coming to the U.K. for work and family reasons and those studying for graduate degrees, which totaled about 540,000 people last year.

Net migration in the U.K. jumped to 764,000 in 2022, a substantial number given the nation’s population is roughly 66.97 million. It dropped to 685,000 last year, the Daily Mail reported, but remains far above the 230,000-level seen at the 2019 election, which Sunak’s party pledged to reduce. More than 10,000 migrants have arrived in the U.K. this year after crossing the English Channel, the Independent reported.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow Home Secretary for the Labour Party — in Britain, the minority party names a shadow Cabinet to question and challenge the ruling Cabinet — said a proposed cap on work and family visas is a “meaningless announcement from a Tory party which has trebled net migration since the last election despite promising to bring it down.”

“All they are doing now is rehashing failed announcements from David Cameron and Theresa May, while doing nothing to tackle the skills shortages and their failures in the economy and immigration system which have pushed net migration up,” Cooper said, according to the Independent.

“Why should anyone take seriously a promise the Tories have already repeatedly broken? Labour’s plan to bring net migration down will link the immigration system with new mandatory training and workforce plans for British workers, and stop rogue employers hiring from abroad.”