UK’s Starmer steps up English tests, toughens migrant rules to halt Farage’s rise

LONDON – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would end the UK’s “experiment in open borders” with tougher plans to curb migration, seeking to head off the growing electoral threat from Nigel Farage’s populist Reform party.

“We risk becoming an island of strangers,” Mr Starmer said at a press conference from Downing Street on May 12, where he set out plans to increase English-speaking requirements for migrants and make it harder for them to stay in the country. “I believe we need to reduce immigration significantly.”

Mr Starmer’s plans, which include ending automatic settlement and citizenship rights for anyone living in the country for more than five years, come against the backdrop of a surge in popularity for Mr Farage’s anti-immigration Reform and a quadrupling in net migration to Britain in recent years.

Further details are to be unveiled on May 12 in a policy document that also includes proposals to raise language standards across “every immigration route” and end overseas recruitment by care companies.

While the plans have been in the works for months, the need to make progress was given extra urgency by local elections at the start of May in which Labour lost almost two-thirds of the seats it was defending, while

Reform won hundreds

, taking control of its first local councils in an astonishing surge for a party that’s less than seven years old.

“When people come to our country, they should also commit to integration and to learning our language,” Mr Starmer said in the statement.

“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.”

Mr Starmer backed Britain remaining in the European Union at the time of the 2016 referendum but has since said he wants to make a success of Brexit.

He presented his plans as fulfilling the Brexit-era promise of “taking back control” of the UK’s borders, a phrase popular with pro-Reform voters, saying his approach would lead to Britain being stricter towards who can enter the country.

“We will finally honour what take back control meant,” he said. “We will create a migration system that is controlled, selective and fair.”

Mr Starmer also challenged the views of the Office for Budget Responsibility, the fiscal watchdog, and the Treasury, which often assume that immigration is correlated with economic growth. He said that despite record levels of migration in recent years, growth had stagnated, though he didn’t address whether the immigration may have prevented a contraction.

Reform’s ascendancy has provoked unrest among Labour Members of Parliament, who already fear losing their seats, despite the next general election not being due until mid-2029. 

Mr Farage’s outfit posted a record high 29 per cent in a YouGov poll of voting intention last week, with Labour slipping to 22 per cent, its lowest in five years.

Separate YouGov polling shows some 48 per cent of Britons think immigration is one of the most important issues facing the country, second only to the state of the economy.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is due to make a statement in the House of Commons on May 12 outlining the new plans, under which Britain will also insist on a “basic understanding of English” from all adult dependents of migrants in order to ensure they are better able to integrate, according to the statement. 

Migrants will be required to spend a decade in the country before applying to stay, unless they can show a “real and lasting contribution to the economy and society,” it said.

Professionals including nurses, doctors, engineers and specialists in artificial intelligence will be given fast-track routes.

The new system will be “one that recognises those who genuinely contribute to Britain’s growth and society, while restoring common sense and control to our borders,” Mr Starmer said.

“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.”

Ms Cooper will also spell out plans to end the overseas recruitment of care workers, while acknowledging the “huge contribution” they have made to the country, according to a separate statement from the Home Office.

Those here already will be able to extend their stays, as well as change their sponsoring employers and apply to settle in Britain.

Meanwhile, long-term plans will be devised to train homegrown workers, according to the statement.

The care worker policy has already provoked some concern: Amy Clark, commercial director for a group of care homes in Cornwall, said they’re extremely reliant on foreign workers.

“It would cause us very significant problems if we aren’t able to recruit from overseas,” she said, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on May 12. “Recruiting locally is very, very difficult. We either get no applicants at all or people apply and don’t turn up for interview.”

The UK’s third party, the Liberal Democrats, accused Labour of “tinkering around the edges” and failing to properly address a crisis in the country’s social care system.

“Labour must step up and take proper action to address recruitment shortages including paying our care workers properly and rolling out a plan for career progression,” the party’s health and social care spokeswoman, Ms Helen Morgan, said in a statement.

Mr Starmer blamed the main opposition Conservative Party – in power for 14 years until Labour took the reins of government in a

landslide general election win last July

– for losing control of British borders and allowing net migration to soar.

Net migration in the year through June 2024 – the most recent available data – stood at 728,000.

While that was down from the record 906,000 a year earlier, it was still significantly higher than the 200,000 to 300,000 level that prevailed for most of the 2010s.

Compounding the problem for Labour is that the number of migrants arriving by crossing the English Channel illegally in small boats from France has surged to record levels in 2025, amid benign weather conditions, including the sunniest March and April on record for England.

As of May 11, Home Office data showed that more than 11,500 migrants had made the journey in 2025, eclipsing 2024’s record of 10,448 for the first five months of the year with more than two weeks still to go.

Labour “has overseen the worst ever start to a year for illegal immigrants crossing the channel,” said Tory shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, who is pushing for the UK to bring in a binding cap on immigration.

“The idea that Starmer is tough on immigration is a joke.”

In interviews with the BBC and Sky on May 11, Ms Cooper said she was proposing a “fundamental shift in the approach to say that the immigration system should be properly linked to skills and training here in the UK”.

She said there would be a “temporary” skills shortage list – including in construction – to allow employers to recruit abroad while training strategies are devised for homegrown talent. 

Ms Cooper also:

“We are very clear we need to bring net migration substantially down,” Ms Cooper told Sky.

“It is currently falling, but we need to go much further. That’s what the plan is about. It’s about restoring control and order.” BLOOMBERG