Sadiq Khan: UK should reject demonisation of immigrants
Sadiq Khan has criticised the Labour government’s immigration reforms, arguing that the UK should reject “the relentless demonisation of immigrants and race to the bottom”.
Speaking at the Fabians new year conference in central London, Khan was critical of recent government reforms which have lengthened the time immigrants to the UK must wait to achieve settled status. Last year, the government announced it would extend the time it takes to achieve Indefinite Leave to Remain from 5 years to 10 years. Khan said, “I worry about the impact that making immigrants wait twice as long for settled status could have. For it doesn’t give them a stake in our country’s future – it takes that stake away.”
He made a similar criticism of the government’s reforms to refugee status. Last year the government announced it would be shifting refugee status from permanent to temporary, with 30-month renewals and increasing the time it takes to achieve settlement to 20-years. Announcing the reforms, Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood said: “To settle in this country forever is not a right, but a privilege. And it must be earned”. But Khan warned that the reforms could backfire. He told attendees, “It will leave people in a precarious state, suspended in limbo for years, their lives overshadowed with uncertainty.”
Khan argued that in order to counter the rising popularity of Reform UK the government should therefore take a different approach. Echoing some of the language of Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, who has previously said he is “unapologetically pro-migration”, Khan said it was the duty of progressives to “make an unapologetically positive case for controlled immigration.” He added: “When it comes to immigration and integration, I hope that we can all rise above the level of political debate that we’ve seen over the last decade.”
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Khan also hit out at Reform and the Conservatives, who he claimed have been painting “a dystopian picture of London as a city that’s fallen.” Laila Cunningham, Reform’s candidate for the upcoming London mayoral elections recently said that people pity Londoners for living in a city that “isn’t safe”. Khan added: “The fact that this is the greatest city in the world makes a mockery of their entire worldview. So they construct lies, seek to manufacture an enemy, pit citizens against one another for political gain, and stoke fear by blaming “the other” for all of society’s ills.”
In a Q&A session following his speech, Khan made clear he backed Andy Burnham being allowed to put himself forward as a candidate in the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election. Echoing the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Lucy Powell, who had also backed Burnham being allowed to stand earlier in the conference, Khan told attendees, “if Andy Burnham wants to be a member of parliament, Andy Burnham should be allowed to be a member of parliament”.
[Further reading: Andy Burnham’s people]
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