Home Office to clamp down on visa overstays amid pressure from Farage
New Home Office rules would put curbs on work and study visas from nationalities most at risk of overstaying and going on to claim asylum as part of Labour’s push to reduce net migration.
Applications from Pakistanis, Nigerians and Sri Lankans are among those set to be restricted, according to a report in The Times.
Data from bank statements is expected to be used as evidence that there are not sufficient financial grounds for an application, to prevent applicants from claiming asylum at taxpayer-funded hotels.
Elsewhere in this policy package, the home secretary Yvette Cooper is expected to introduce rules that would force international graduates from staying in the UK unless they get a graduate level job – with this threshold based on skill levels rather than salary alone.
Net migration stood at 728,000 in 2024, when 40,000 asylum claimants already held a UK visa.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp slammed the move as “a desperate response to the thrashing Labour got in last week’s elections.”
He added: “Like everything Starmer offers, it is just performative and won’t make a difference.
“The system already refuses visas for people who fit the profile of asylum claimants, and asylum seekers already have to prove they are destitute to get accommodation.”
Farage barrage
This comes as Sir Keir Starmer is set to hold a political Cabinet meeting this morning – without civil servants – to discuss why Labour haemorrhaged hundreds of councillors to Reform at last week’s local elections.
The insurgent opposition party won 677 council seats, taking full control of ten county councils, while Labour lost 187. Reform’s newest MP Sarah Pochin is set to be sworn in later on Tuesday, after winning the Runcorn and Helsby by-election from Labour by just six votes.
Nigel Farage’s party is set to lay out a detailed policy this week for the mass deportation of illegal immigrants, first reported by The i Paper.
Reform is understood to be focusing its campaigning fire on immigration policy over more bread-and-butter issues around the economy and the cost of living, as party bosses reportedly believe that migration is less likely to dramatically shift ahead of the next election.
Elsewhere in this post local elections policy shake-up, the government could be poised to change its politically contentious changes to the winter fuel allowance – according to a report in The Guardian.