Labour Government Postpones Major Plans to Cut Mass Migration

The new left-wing Labour Party government in Britain will reportedly postpone its central plans to cut the influx of foreign workers despite mass migration driving the largest population rise on record.

“Read my lips — I will bring immigration numbers down,” Sir Keir Starmer promised the public prior to his party’s sweeping election victory.

However, the new prime minister’s two major electoral manifesto initiatives to drive down foreign worker numbers will not appear in this week’s King’s Speech, the annual tradition in which the Monarch reads out a list of policies the democratically-elected government will pursue.

The left-wing party had said that it would seek to cut migration by cracking down on employers, including measures to prevent them from hiring workers from other countries if they failed to uphold standards for British workers first, such as paying the minimum wage.

Labour had also said that it would place limits on companies hiring from abroad if they refused to train and recruit native workers first.

Both initiatives have been postponed until at least next year, The Telegraph reports. The government will allegedly carry out consultations before putting together legislation.

A government source claimed: “All that work will happen. There will be guidance, consultation and business engagement, but it is a longer lead time to develop legislation that has the desired effect.”

However, the supposed delay casts further doubt on the party’s actual desire to cut migration given its history of opening the gates under former PM Tony Blair.

Many within the ranks of the party are also already calling for new visa schemes as well as opening up new avenues for refugees, including for potentially tens of thousands of Palestinians.

The delay to their major proposals comes as it was revealed on Monday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that the UK saw its largest population increase on record in the year leading up to mid-2023. The ONS reported that 1,084,000 foreigners were allowed into the country, while 462,000 left the country, meaning that net migration stood at 622,000.

This figure was more than double pre-Brexit levels of migration, with the ousted Conservative government failing to deliver on its numerous promises to the public to cut immigration to the tens of thousands.

The refusal of the Conservatives to fulfil their pledges to the public on migration was seen as a key factor in their drubbing in this month’s general election.

While the new Labour government is expected to keep reforms from Rishi Sunak to reduce the number of dependents allowed — projected to cut net migration by around 300,000 per year — the delayed impact of the policy demonstrates the political danger of Starmer’s reported decision to delay his parties policies to further cut migration.

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