Kemi Badenoch has announced a review of what went wrong for the Conservatives in the 2025 local elections. In an article for ConservativeHome, she says she has asked it to report to her by the end of June.

She also uses the article to denounce people writing off her party as “pound-shop commentators and weathervane pundits”. She says:

Of course, there are plenty of pound-shop commentators and weathervane pundits ready to write off the Conservative party.

But we’ve been here before, and we’ve always come back stronger. I still remember the bad set of local elections in May 2019, swiftly followed by the European elections later that month where we polled just under 9 per cent. It felt like our time in government was over. Yet Boris pulled out a historic majority that same year.

If we are to make this year the point from when we rise again, and the latest case study in the Conservative Party bouncing back from a historic low, then we need to forge a new determination in this time of adversity.

In making this argument, Badenoch seems to have forgotten that something important happened to her party between its defeat in the May 2019 local election and its general election victory seven months later; it replaced its leader.

The Labour MP Florence Eshalomi, who represents Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, said she was proud to live in a diverse and vibrant community.

But she said migrants living in her constituency have been in touch today to asks if the decision to extend the amount if time people have to wait until they can get earned settlement and citizenship (see 3.15pm) would cover people already in the UK, or just new arrivals.

Cooper would not say. She just said further details of this plan would be set out later this year, and she said “there will be plenty of opportunity for people to comment on and consider the detail”.

Caroline Nokes, the Commons deputy speaker, reprimanded the government before the start of the immigration white paper statement for releasing details of it to the media before announcing it in parliament.

She said the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, could not understand why the government kept ignoring rules saying announcements must be made to MPs first. Those rules are no longer being respected, she said. She said Hoyle could be considering what could be done to “regularise the situation”.

The immigration white paper says the government will legislate to clarify the circumstances in which people can use article 8 of the European convention on human rights (the right to a family life) to secure the right to stay in the UK when otherwise they would have to leave. The document does not explain in detail how the legislation would work, but it says it would “clarify article 8 rules and set out how they should apply in different immigration routes so that fewer cases are treated as ‘exceptional’, and set out when and how a person can genuinely make a claim on the basis of exceptional circumstances”.

The Labour MP Clive Lewis says that could weaken protections for everyone. He has posted these on social media.

Article 8 is a check on state power. A check on authoritarianism.

It’s a right the state can only override if it acts lawfully, necessarily, and proportionately.

Weakening it for migration cases is a Trojan horse - weakening protections for all of us. 1/2

Article 8 is the right UK citizens use to:

– Challenge the state when their children are taken into care

– Stop intrusive surveillance/unlawful data grabs

– Protect their homes from arbitrary searches

– Keep contact with loved ones in prison

– Defend the right to a private and family life

Water it down for “them” today, and it won’t be there for you tomorrow.

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s former first minister, has confirmed she will vote against a bill to legalise assisted dying in the Scottish parliament tomorrow.

Sturgeon, the first minister from 2014 until she quit unexpectedly in March 2023, posted a statement on Instagram to warn she believed legalisation would put the vulnerable and older terminally ill people under moral or implied pressure to take their lives.

The definition of terminal illness in the bill, which has its stage one vote in Holyrood on Tuesday evening, was also too wide because it did not fix a time limit (the proposals for England and Wales require death to be expected within six months). That meant someone could choose assisted dying prematurely.

She said the bill’s provisions against coercion and its requirements for two doctors to sign agreements that someone had a terminal illness could not prevent “internal coercion” where an ill person felt “others might be better off” if they were not there.

It would risk a situation in which a right to die might become, in the minds of some people, a perceived duty to die.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats, which are sponsoring the bill, believe they have a majority in favour of allowing it to proceed to full evaluation by a committee of MSPs.

Sturgeon’s intervention adds to pressure on wavering MSPs to oppose it after John Swinney, the current first minister, and Humza Yousaf, who served as first minister after she quit, both said they too will vote against the bill.

The police are investigating a fire at Keir Starmer’s family home in north London, Steven Swinford from the Times reports.

Police are investigating a fire at the prime minister’s North London home in the early hours of this morning

The London Fire Brigade was called after the fire was reported around 1.35am

The front door was damaged but no one was hurt.

The street has been sealed off. Starmer has rented out the house since moving into Downing Street. It has been repeatedly targeted by protestors in the past

When Zarah Sultana said that Keir Starmer’s speech this morning echoed Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech (see 2.06pm), it sounded as if she was making a general point.

But Sultana may have had a better memory of the 1968 speech than she let on because Starmer was not just sounding a bit reminiscent of Powell (like Sultana, a West Midlands MP). Starmer was using very similar language. Referring to the impact of immigration on (white) people living in Britain at the time, Powell said:

For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country.

And this morning Starmer said:

Without [fair immigration rules], we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.

Zack Polanski, who is running to be the next Green party leader, has suggested that Starmer was deliberately echoing Powell’s phraseology. He posted this on Bluesky.

Starmer’s Britain

Not even subtle

But it seems unlikely that Starmer (or his speechwriter) would have deliberately decided to reference the Rivers of Blood speech. The Labour party has tolerated a lot from Starmer, but, even for this PLP, lauding the most famous racist speech in British politics would be a step too far. It seems far more likely that this was an unintentional (or at least unconscious) use of the same imagery.

Downing Street is holding a lobby briefing this afternoon. Presumably we will get a line from them on this shortly.

One of the proposals in the immigration white paper that seems most inspired by the Conservative party is the proposal to double the amount of time immigrants have to wait until they can get earned settlement status, which can lead to citizenship. It will go up from five years to 10 years. In February Kemi Badenoch announced a very similar plan, saying immigrants should have to wait 10 years for settled status, and then another five years for citizenship.

The British Futures thinktank says this will make integration harder. (See 11.54am.)

Other experts are saying the same thing. This is from Marley Morris from the IPPR thinktank.

Extending the standard route to settlement to 10 years risks making it harder for people to contribute and settle into their communities. Visa holders will spend lengthy periods on an insecure status, increasing their risk of poverty and losing status altogether. This could inhibit integration while doing little to bring down numbers.

And this is from Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the Work Rights Centre, a charity that worksd with migrants and disadvantaged people.

Placing ILR [indefinite leave to remain] and settlement even further out of reach for many migrants is an arbitrary move that introduces further unfairness into an already hostile system. While the Home Office cashes in on the additional application fees, migrants and their families will remain in a transitory position for an extended period, making the end goal of integration as set out by the prime minister much harder to realise in practice.

More people will be put at risk of falling into insecure immigration status, putting them at greater risk of exploitation, and potentially even increasing the number of people with undocumented status.

In an interview on the World at One, Seema Malhotra, the minister for migration and citizenship, was asked what Keir Starmer meant this morning when he talked about the risk of the UK becoming “an island of strangers”. She replied:

What that really recognises is that, without ways in which we’ve got common ties that bind us together, the way in which we can communicate well with each other, neighbours can talk to each other, people can play a part and play a role in their communities, we risk being communities that live side by side, rather than work and walk together.

She also said speaking English was part of this. The white paper includes plans to tighten English language requirements for immigrants.

When the presenter, Sarah Montague, asked if Starmer was saying there were too many people coming to the UK from overseas when he made this remark, Malhotra replied: “That’s not what he was saying.” She said Starmer also made a point of saying migration and diversity have been good for Britain.

The leftwing Labour MP Nadia Whittome has criticised Keir Starmer for saying this morning Britain risked becoming “an island of strangers” without fair immigration controls. (See 9.53am.) She posted these on Bluesky.

The step-up in anti-migrant rhetoric from the government is shameful and dangerous.

Migrants are our neighbours, friends and family.

To suggest that Britain risks becoming “an island of strangers” because of immigration mimics the scaremongering of the far-right.

Blaming migrants for a housing crisis and failing public services lets the real culprits off the hook: landlordism, chronic underinvestment and deepening inequality.

Labour was elected to tackle those, not parrot Reform’s scapegoating, which will never improve people’s lives.

Other leftwingers have said similar things. This is from Apsana Begum, who was elected as a Labour MP but who is currently suspended over a rebel vote.

I’m proud to represent an East London constituency where diversity is a strength —where communities include migrants from all around the world.

We must end, not embolden, the hostile environment.

I will be voting against the Border Security, Asylum & Immigration Bill this week.

And this is from Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who was elected last year as an independent.

The problems in our society are not caused by migrants or refugees.

They are caused by an economic system rigged in favour of corporations and billionaires.

If the government wanted to improve people’s lives, it would tax the rich and build an economy that works for us all.

Universities are worried about the impact of some of the measures in the white paper – in particular the proposal for “a levy on higher education provider income from international students, to be reinvested into the higher education and skills system”. This was not widely flagged up in advance, and the white paper does not say how this would work. It just says further details will be announced in the budget in the autumn.

Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, the main group representing universities, said in a statement:

Following years of frozen fees, inadequate research funding and a rapid downturn in international students, the current operating environment is very challenging. We would urge government to think carefully about the impact that a levy on international student fees will have on universities and the attractiveness of the UK as a study destination.

Stern described the separate changes to the graduate visas rules as “minor”. Rosalind Gill, head of policy at the National Centre for Universities and Business, which promotes links between universities and business, said the white paper plans posed “major risks”. She said:

Further restrictions on graduate visas, and a new international student levy, will jeopardise the sustainability and global connectivity of UK universities. International students are significant contributors to the UK, fuelling research, innovation, and global partnerships. [The proposed immigration bill’s] curbs will diminish our competitiveness in the global education market, undermining the vital contributions that universities make to both the economy and national prosperity.

Care England, which represents adult social care providers, has described the immigration white paper plans as “a crushing blow”. Under the plans, the government will close applications for new social care visas.

Martin Green, Care England’s chief executive, said in a statement:

This is a crushing blow to an already fragile sector. The government is kicking us while we’re already down.

For years, the sector has been propping itself up with dwindling resources, rising costs, and mounting vacancies. International recruitment wasn’t a silver bullet, but it was a lifeline. Taking it away now, with no warning, no funding, and no alternative, is not just short-sighted – it’s cruel.

We’re told to wait for the employment rights bill and a fair pay agreement, but those reforms are years away and come with no significant funding attached. In the meantime, we’ve lost 70,000 domestic workers over the last two years, vacancies still remain sky-high, and many providers are on the brink of collapse. Who do ministers think is going to care for people tomorrow, next week, or next month?

The SNP government in Scotland has said the UK government’s immigration white paper will have a “devastating” impact on the care sector. In a statement, Scotland’s equalities minister Kaukab Stewart said:

The UK Government’s plans on migration stand in stark contrast to our values and they do not reflect Scotland’s distinct population needs …

Scotland needs talented and committed people from across the world to live, work and study here without excessive barriers. A one-size fits all approach to immigration fails to meet the needs of Scotland and much of the UK. In particular, any plans to end international recruitment of care workers will be devastating for the care sector in Scotland and across the UK.

The SNP wants Scotland to get powers over immigration policy – but Wesminster has always refused, on the grounds that it would not be practical for Scotland and England to have different immigration rules when they share an open border.

The CBI, which represents business, particularly big firms, is never particularly antagonistic towards government. But, in a statement from Rain Newton-Smith, its chief executive, it has raised several objections to the government’s immigration white paper plans. (See 10.24am.)

• Newton-Smith suggested the PM was wrong to say business has become reliant on cheap foreign labour. In his speech in No 10 this morning, Keir Starmer complained that the current immigration system “encourages some businesses to bring in lower-paid workers rather than invest in our young people”. But Newton-Smith rejected this analysis. She said:

The reality for businesses is that it is more expensive and difficult to fill a vacancy with immigration than if they could hire locally or train workers. Work visas already require higher pay than most domestic workers get for the same job. When considered alongside the large fees and accompanying charges, foreign workers are simply not the ‘easy’ or ‘cheap’ alternative.

• She said she was concerned about the impact of the plans on universities.

Universities are centres of growth, innovation and opportunities. Policy changes that risk making the UK a less attractive place to study or increase costs confronting universities will have knock-on impacts for the competitive strength of UK Higher Education as a growth export, and young people’s ability to access degree-level education at home. These trade-offs need to be considered if the government is serious about developing domestic talent and driving growth.

• And she said that stopping people getting skilled worker visas for jobs that are not degree level could be a mistake.

Businesses will also carefully consider the detail of proposals to limit visas for skilled jobs below degree level. Labour shortages can’t be solved by training alone. With the UK’s workforce set to shrink in the future as our population ages, it’s more important than ever that we support the business investment needed to underpin tech adoption and training.

British Future, a thinktank focusing on race and identity issues, has said some of the measures in the immigration white paper could damage integration, and go beyond what the public want.

In a statement, Sunder Katwala, the thinktank’s director (and a former head of the Fabian Society, the Labour party thinktank), said:

Making control and contribution the core themes of the white paper fits with where most of the public is. But the majority are ‘balancers’ on immigration and would apply that selectively, rather than seeking to drive down net migration at all costs. Getting that balance right, and delivering on the promises it makes, could help the government start to rebuild public trust on immigration.

The public is certainly not crying out for fewer migrant care home workers – seven in ten do not want reductions. Having cancelled the social care visa, the government needs to reassure people that it has a plan to ensure our creaking social care system has the workers it needs, and treats those already here fairly.

This white paper rightly says that integration matters, but some of its measures could damage rather than encourage integration. It’s hard to see how a 10-year wait before someone can become British helps them integrate. Most of the public are happy for people to be eligible for citizenship after five years. The government should be proactive on citizenship, not punitive.

British Future recently published polling showing that, overwhelmingly, people who want to reduce immigration are focused on irregular immigration, and that, for many migrant worker groups, voters do not want to see their numbers reduced. These categories include groups who will be affected by the government’s plans, like care workers.

The Green party has denounced the immigration white paper proposals as “panicked and misguided”. In a statement, Carla Denyer, the party’s co-leader, said:

These ill-thought-through reforms are the triumph of a panicked and misguided rush to create headlines and try to win back Reform voters.

From closed down youth centres to shuttered pubs, people in all parts of the UK are feeling the bonds that hold their communities together dissolving. And whether it’s rebuilding intergenerational relationships, or helping those who come here from abroad to integrate, strengthening those bonds requires support and crucially funding from central government. But far from rebuilding our communities, this government’s reforms are going to make things worse.

In particular, at a time when the care sector is already stretched to breaking point, and public support for people coming from overseas to work in our care sector is consistently strong, it’s wild that this government is ignoring public opinion and making it even harder to recruit badly-needed care staff.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has also been posted on social media about the immigration white paper. In various posts, he claimed 250 young men were already crossing the Channel this morning, suggesting some may be Iranian terrorists, posted pictures of some of them, and said Labour would not control the boders.

This government will not do what it takes to control our borders.

Only Reform UK will leave the ECHR and deport illegal migrants.

The white paper, of course, has nothing to do with irregular migration. But Farage knows that it is easier to energise voters by attacking asylum seekers than migrant nurses, and his party has been benefited from the extent to which people massively overstate the extent to which small boat arrivals contribute to overall net migration. (See 7.56am.)

Kemi Badenoch has claimed that Keir Starmer is not sincere about wanting to reduce immigration. She posted this on social media.

Keir Starmer once called all immigration laws racist.

So why would anyone believe he actually wants to bring immigration down?

When I proposed ending the automatic route to British citizenship and introducing a legally binding cap, the government laughed it off.

Now—nine months into office and after voting against every serious attempt we’ve put forward to cut numbers—Starmer suddenly wants you to think he cares.

Labour doesn’t believe in secure borders. You can’t trust them to protect ours.

Badenoch was referring to an article that Starmer wrote for the Socialist Lawyer magazine in 1988, in which he referred to the “racist undercurrent which permeates all immigration law, whether implemented by the Tories or Labour”. The Tories have raised this before to try to embarass Starmer, without much success, partly because Starmer was just a very junior barrister when he wrote this.

But Starmer’s 1988 analysis has been accepted as accurate – by the Home Office itself. An internal Home Office report, first made public by Amelia Gentleman in the Guardian three years ago, said much post-war immigration law was, in fact, racist. The report said:

During the period 1950-1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK.

In his foreword to the immigration white paper, Keir Starmer claims the damage done to the UK by net migration soaring under the Tories has been “incalculable”. He is referring not just to the economic impact of immigration (which is contested – Starmer talks about pressure on public services, without mentioning the extent to which some public services rely on immigrant labour), but also to the effect broken promises have had on trust.

He says:

In 2023, under the previous government, inward migration exploded to over a million people a year – four times the level compared with 2019. This was a political choice that was never put before the British people. In fact, quite the opposite – the previous government repeatedly promised inward migration would be brought under control. Instead, Britain became a one-nation experiment in open borders.

The damage this has done to our country is incalculable. Public services and housing access have been placed under too much pressure. Our economy has been distorted by perverse incentives to import workers rather than invest in our own skills. In sectors like engineering, for example, apprenticeships have almost halved while visas doubled.

But arguably even worse is the wound this failure has opened when it comes to trust in politics. It is a wound, as I said on my first day as prime minister, that can only be healed by actions not words. This white paper is just that.

During his Q&A, Keir Stamer was asked if he thought it would be necessary for the UK to “disentangle” itself from the European convention on human rights. (See 8.57am.) He replied:

No, I don’t think that that is necessary.

I also remind myself that the international agreements we’ve signed have given us the basis for the deals that we’ve struck on illegal migration.

You can’t strike those deals with other countries to work more closely together on law enforcement, to smash the gangs and to work on returns agreements – which is what we want to do – if, in the next breath, you’ll say you don’t believe in international law.

Danny Shaw, the home affairs commentator who briefly worked as an adviser to Labour when they were in opposition, says on Bluesky that this is an acknowledgment from Starmer that he wants more returns agreements.

NEW Significant from @Keir_Starmer in his last answer at press conference. He says Govt can’t “work on returns agreements which is what we want to do” if it’s not adhering to international obligations, ie human rights laws.
First public acknowledgment of aim for returns deals?

Starmer spoke about his support for return agreements during the election campaign. But when he cited Bangladesh as an example of a country to where more people should be returned, this triggered a strong backlash from Bangladeshis who felt they were being singled out.

Here is the Home Office summary of what the measures in the immigration white paper will do.

Reversing the long-term trend of increasing international recruitment at the expense of skills and training

-The Labour Market Evidence Group will be established, drawing on the best data available in order to make informed decisions about the state of the labour market and the role that different policies should play, rather than always relying on migration.

-Departments across government will engage sector bodies as part of this approach.

Raising skilled worker threshold – Skilled must mean skilled

-Lifting the level for skilled workers back to RQF 6 (Graduate level) and above. Salary thresholds will rise.

-The immigration salary list, which gives people discounts from salary thresholds, will be abolished.

-Access to the points-based immigration system will be limited to occupations where there have been long term shortages, on a time limited basis, where the MAC [migration advisory committee] has advised it is justified, where there is a workforce strategy in place, and where employers seeking to recruit from abroad are committed to playing their part in increasing recruitment from the domestic workforce.

Adult Social Care

-End overseas recruitment for social care visas. In line with our wider reforms to skills thresholds, we will close social care visas to new applications from abroad.

-For a transition period until 2028, while the workforce strategy is being developed and rolled out, we will permit visa extensions and in-country switching for those already here. This will be kept under review.

Study

-We will strengthen the requirements that all sponsoring institutions must meet in order to recruit international students.

-We will introduce new interventions for sponsors who are close to failing their sponsor duties, including placing them on an action plan designed to improve their compliance, and imposing limits on the number of new international students they can recruit while they are subject to those plans.

-We will reduce the ability for graduates to remain in the UK after their studies to a period of 18 months.

Family

-We will tackle the over complex family and private life immigration arrangements, where too many cases are treated as “exceptional” rather than having a clear framework.

-Legislation will be brought forward to make clear it is the government and parliament that decides who should have the right to remain in the UK. This will address cases where article 8 right to family life legal arguments are being used to frustrate deportation where removal is clearly in the public interest.

Growth

-We will go further in ensuring that the very highly skilled have opportunities to come to the UK and access our targeted routes for the brightest and best global talent.

-This includes increasing the number of people arriving on our very high talent routes, alongside faster routes for bringing people to the UK who have the right skills and experience to supercharge UK growth in strategic industries.

-This includes increasing places to our scheme for research interns, making it easier for top scientific and design talent to use our global talent visa, and reviewing our innovator founder visa and high potential individual route to maximise their benefit to the UK economy.

Tackling abuse

-New policies will apply to individuals who claim asylum where conditions in their home country have not materially changed, particularly where they have claimed asylum after arrival.

-Tighter visa controls, restrictions, requirements or scrutiny will be applied where we have evidence of abuse, based on a clear assessment of the risks.

-Measures to ensure that other governments play their part in supporting the integrity of the UK immigration system – particularly where there are currently barriers in the way of us returning their nationals.

-Innovative financial measures, penalties or sanctions, including for sponsors of migrant workers or students where there is evidence of abuse. These will incentivise them to act responsibly, with new measures to support compliance with visa conditions by migrants.

Foreign National Offenders (FNOs)

-Reform the deportation system to ensure the Home Office is informed of all foreign nationals convicted of offences – not just those who go to prison.

-Review deportation thresholds to take into account a wider range of factors than just the length of sentence, and start by revising the statutory exceptions criteria to ensure that the deportation test reflects the seriousness of violence against women and girls.

English language

-Introduce new English language requirements across a broader range of immigration routes, for both main applicants and their dependants, to ensure a better knowledge of English, including an assessment of improvements over time.

Earned settlement and citizenship

-Double the standard qualifying period for settlement to ten years.

-Expand the points-based System to both our settlement and citizenship rules, so they are based on contribution to the UK, with further details to be set out to parliament by the end of the year.

The Home Office has just published the 76-page immigration white paper and a 15-page technical annex.

According to the annex, measures in the white paper should reduce immigration numbers by around 100,000 a year. This figure is based on an analysis of the measures where data allows an assessment to be made. The Home Office says the analysis “does not attempt to quantify the full impact of policy proposals given the uncertainty surrounding the details of implementation, such as timing, and the complexity of behavioural responses within the immigration system”.

Q: Five years ago you signed a letter objecting to the deportation of foreign criminals. Your views have changed, haven’t they?

Starmer rejects this. As DPP he was in favour of foreign criminals being deported, he says.

He does not address the point raised by the letter he signed in 2020 – an issue that Tories have raised frequently in the past.

Q: Why should people believe that you will succed where other governments failed? And why don’t you set a target for reducing immigration?

Starmer says this is a comprehensive plan.

He wants to reduce net migration, he says.

And he says, if he needs to go further to achieve that, he will.

He also says in the past targets have not worked.

Starmer is now taking questions.

Q: Are you promising net migration will fall every year?

Starmer says he wants to get net migration down significantly. But he does not commit to net migration falling every year.

I promise that [net migration] will fall significantly, and I do want to get it down by the end of this parliament, significantly.

Starmer says it is a mistake to view what he is annoucing today in just party political terms.

He is referring to claims that this is just about seeing off the theat from Reform UK.

He says:

On a day like today, people who like politics will try to make this all about politics, about this or that strategy, targeting these voters, responding to that party.

No, I’m doing this because it is right, because it is fair and because it is what I believe in.

Keir Starmer is speaking now. He says this strategy is crucial to his Plan for Change.

He is framing this in Brexit terms.

He says the government is finally taking back control of our borders, and closing the book “on a squalid chapter for our politics”.

He goes on:

Take back control – everyone knows that slogan, and everyone knows what it meant on immigration, or at least that’s what people thought.

Because what followed from the previous government, starting with the people who used that slogan, was the complete opposite.

Between 2019 and 2023, even as they were going round our country telling people with a straight face that they would get immigration down, net migration quadrupled, until in 2023 it reached nearly 1 million. That’s about the population of Birmingham, our second largest city. That’s not control. It’s chaos.

And look, they must answer for themselves. But I don’t think that you can do something like that by accident. It was a choice, a choice made even as they told you, told the country, they were doing the opposite – a one-nation experiment in open borders conducted on a country that voted for control.

Well, no more. Today, this Labour government is shutting down the lab. The experiment is over. We will deliver what you’ve asked for time and again, and we will take back control of our borders.

Care providers are worried about the proposals to end the international recruitment of care workers. In a statement issued yesterday, Jane Townson, CEO of the Homecare Association, which represents homecare providers, said:

International recruitment is a lifeline for the homecare sector, enabling us to provide vital support to older and disabled people in their own homes. Care providers are already struggling to recruit within the UK. We are deeply concerned the government has not properly considered what will happen to the millions of people who depend on care at home to live safely and independently.

And this morning Amy Clark, commercial director of a care home firm in Cornwall, told the Today programme that she did not think it was realistic for the government to expect care homes to recruit all their staff domestically. She said:

The big problem that we would have is if we weren’t able to recruit any overseas staff because recruiting locally is very, very difficult.

We try all the time to recruit locally. We put our wages up, we still don’t get applicants.

We’ve always paid higher than minimum wage, but that is becoming increasingly difficult, especially with the national insurance costs and also the national minimum wage increase and the pitiful uplift from the local authorities in relation to the social care funding.

Good morning. Keir Starmer is today unveiling the government immigration white paper, which he says will tighten the rules across all aspects of the visa system. He is holding a press conference at 8.30am. In comments released overnight, he said this would mark “a clean break from the past”.

It is normal to assume that Whitehall policy changes when government changes, but there is more continuity in policy making than party politicians tend to admit and the “clean break” probably happened 18 months ago. Before then, governments (Labour and Tory) were tolerant of high levels of net migration, both when the UK was in the EU and after it left (when net migration soared under the Tories). In December 2023 James Cleverly, the then home secretary, announced a drastic package of changes to visa rules that he said would cut net migration by 300,000 a year. Today Labour, with Yvette Cooper as home secretary, is going further, but in the same direction. In some respects it’s a Cooperly announcement. But that does not mean it’s not a big deal, particularly for the Labour party.

Some of the commentary around today’s announcement has presented this as a kneejerk response to Reform UK’s huge success in the local elections. Starmer is certainly worried about Reform; in an interview published yesterday, he told the Sun on Sunday that even before the local elections “we were planning on the basis we were likely to be facing Reform at the next election” rather than the Tories as Labour’s main opponents. But Labour is also worried about losing votes to the Liberal Democrats and the Green and, if this was just a Reform sabotage operation, Starmer would have announced this before the local elections, not after. The plans that Starmer is announcing today are the culmination of policy that has been evolving ever since he told the CBI in a speech in 2022 that he wanted “to help the British economy off its immigration dependency”. At that point, if you had told him there was a real chance of Nigel Farage becoming PM by the end of the decade, he would not have taken you seriously.

The white paper has been subject to almost as much pitch rolling and advance briefing as a budget. The Home Office has already released three press notices about it – saying that “Britain’s failed immigration system will be radically reformed”, that the plans will “make it easier to remove foreign criminals committing crimes in the UK”, and that “international recruitment for care workers will end”. And here is Rajeev Syal’s overnight preview.

According to the No 10 overnight briefing, this is what Keir Starmer is due to say this morning.

For years we have had a system that encourages businesses to bring in lower paid workers, rather than invest in our young people.

That is the Britain this broken system has created.

Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control. Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall.

We will create a system that is controlled, selective and fair.

One that recognises those who genuinely contribute to Britain’s growth and society, while restoring common sense and control to our borders.

This is a clean break from the past and will ensure settlement in this country is a privilege that must be earned, not a right.

And when people come to our country, they should also commit to integration and to learning our language.

Lower net migration, higher skills and backing British workers – that is what this white paper will deliver.

Here is the agenda for the day.

8.30am: Keir Starmer holds a press conference about the immigration white paper.

2.30pm: Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 3.30pm: Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is expected to make a statement to MPs about the immigration white paper.

3.45pm: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

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If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.