Dame Emily Thornberry has warned that Labour must be careful about being seen as “nasty” over proposed changes to immigration settlement rules.
Under plans the government is finalising following a consultation, the established five-year pathway to permanent residency (also known as indefinite leave to remain or settlement) could be replaced by a 10-year baseline under an “earned settlement” model.
Indefinite leave to remain (ILR) gives a person the right to live, work and study in the UK for as long as they like and apply for benefits if they are eligible.
The proposed changes, spearheaded by Shabana Mahmood as home secretary, have proved controversial due to their retrospective nature. People who have already obtained settlement would not be affected, but the proposed rules would cover people already living in the UK.
This framework was first unveiled during Keir Starmer’s tenure as prime minister, forming part of a government white paper published in May 2025.
There were over 200,000 responses to the consultation on the reforms, which concluded in February of this year.
Speaking at a More in Common fringe event at Labour conference, Thornberry said it was “just not fair” to change the rules for people who came to the UK under existing ones.
Thornberry, a former senior frontbencher who has served as chair of the foreign affairs committee since 2024, said she did not understand the “purpose” behind the policy.
She stated: “I think that if you are going to have people come into the country, tell them what the rules are, and get them to abide by them, and then years in, you tell them actually you change the rules now, and the things that you were doing before are now being held against you are just not fair. And I don’t really understand what the purpose of that is.”
Thornberry said she had already made her views known, and argued the change would not deter anyone from staying.
“It’s not like people are going to leave. It’s just going to take them longer to become British citizens”, she said. “We have to be careful about being seen as just nasty.”
Thornberry said public anxiety about immigration was “completely fine”, and that it stemmed from a perception that the state cannot control it. “If there is any area of life where we have no control, where it is out of control, and nobody can control it, then people get very anxious”, she said.
She added: “It’s our challenge as politicians to try to ensure that we do have immigration controls. But I do think also it is really important that our immigration controls are firm, but they’re also fair, and if decisions are made, we make them fast.”
