UK opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has said her Conservative party would make it more difficult for regular migrants to settle permanently in Britain.
The announcement, her first major policy proposal since taking over the struggling party in November, comes as she tries to stop supporters flocking to the hard-right Reform UK party.
Badenoch said in an interview late Wednesday that migrants would have to prove they had made a net contribution to the UK economy in order to settle indefinitely in the country, by working and paying taxes.
That means residency status would not be granted to migrants who had claimed benefits, she told the BBC.
“We need to slow down the track for citizenship. A UK passport should be a privilege, not an automatic right,” said Badenoch, who was born in London to Nigerian parents and raised in Nigeria.
Badenoch added that the period before migrants could apply for indefinite leave to remain — which can lead to British citizenship — should be doubled from five to 10 years.
Shadow interior minister Chris Philp told BBC radio on Thursday: “If someone over a period of time has consistently claimed benefits and not worked then we don’t want to give them indefinite leave to remain.”
Those who had not worked, or had only earned a low salary “would be required to leave,” Philp added.
The next general election is not expected until 2029 and the Conservatives have a mountain to climb to have any chance of removing premier Keir Starmer’s Labour party from power.
They were reduced to a historic low of just 121 seats in the 650-seat UK parliament, as Labour returned a whopping 406 MPs to end the Conservatives’ 14-year-run in government during July’s elections.
Net migration soared to record levels under Conservative rule.
Reform UK, led by arch-Eurosceptic Nigel Farage won five seats at last year’s polls in a breakthrough for a hard-right party.
A YouGov poll this week put anti-immigrant Reform out in front for the first time, although its one-point lead over Labour was within the margin of error.
