Pledging to “end family break-up through the immigration system”, the Labour Party is announcing it will scrap a number of laws holding back mass migration.
In a speech revealing Labour’s vision for migration policy post-Brexit, Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott unveiled asylum and immigration policies that the Conservatives warned would act as a “dangerous incentive” to third world migrants tempted to make hazardous journeys to Europe.
Outlining the “fair and reasonable values” on which Labour says it intends to set immigration rules, Abbott said Labour would end “family break-up through the immigration system”.
The left-wing party would achieve this by allowing ‘child’ migrants to bring over family members — particularly parents — effectively turning them into beachheads for a large-scale chain migration.
Labour would also end the practice of at least attempting to deport ‘child’ migrants with no valid asylum claim once they turn 18.
Abbott asserted that it is “neither fair nor reasonable to break up families” in the speech, and also renewed the pledge made by Labour at the last general election to axe the government’s “false and unworkable net migration target” of less than 100,000 a year.
The London MP pointed to a large number of current migration policies which Labour would either scrap or change if they came to power, the Guardian reports.
A leaked draft of the proposals indicated Labour would ditch rules brought in by the Conservatives in 2011, which only allow allows a foreign spouse to be brought to Britain if their partner earns more than £18,600 a year — which is below the national average income, but high enough to offer some insurance against the couple becoming a net drain on taxpayers immediately.
Foreign spouses make up a large number of immigrants to Britain. In 2009, when Labour had been in power for 12 years, Ann Cryer estimated that as many as 80 per cent of Muslim marriages in the area involved bringing a spouse over from Pakistan or another country in the Indian subcontinent.
The former Labour MP, who also suffered abuse for trying to highlight the health risks of cousin marriage, warned that transcontinental marriages were importing “third world poverty” to the streets of Britain.
Also contained in the leaked plans were proposals to introduce a visa scheme for “low-skilled, unskilled and seasonal” workers — categories of migrants which, as Migration Watch UK has pointed out, place pressure on housing, healthcare, education and the criminal justice system while paying virtually no tax.
A Conservative Party spokesman told the Press Association: “Labour’s policy would risk breaking up families by creating a dangerous incentive for children to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean and onto the UK on their own.”
However, they then added: “Our immigration policy will always support those in genuine need and those who need our help the most.
“That’s why we are resettling 23,000 vulnerable refugees, including children with their families, from the camps around the Middle East and North Africa.”
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