Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces questions after announcing immigration crackdown

Keir Starmer will face PMQs on Wednesday just days after warning that the UK risks becoming an “island of strangers” while announcing an immigration crackdown.

On Monday, the UK Labour Government outlined a suite of proposals to control and crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration.

Amongst the proposals, migrants would need to spend up to a decade in the UK before they can apply for citizenship.

Starmer also wants to end the recruitment of care workers from abroad, cut the number of visas for lower-skilled workers by up to 50,000, and ramp up English language requirements across the board.

The Prime Minister said “migration is part of Britain’s national story”, but promised it will fall as part of his plans.

“When people come to our country, they should also commit to integration, to learning our language, and our system should actively distinguish between those that do and those that don’t. I think that’s fair,” Starmer said on Monday.

“Now, make no mistake, this plan means migration will fall.”

Starmer will be forced to answer for those statements by both opposition parties and his own backbench MPs – some of whom have vocally criticised the language the Prime Minister used on Monday.

Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, previously said migrants are being “scapegoated for problems that they didn’t cause”.

“Why are we trying to ape Reform when that will do nothing to improve our constituents’ lives and just stoke more division?” she said on Monday.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who lost the Labour whip last year after rebelling on a welfare vote, accused Sir Keir of “reflecting the language” of Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood speech” in the 1960s.

A Reform UK MP parties criticised the proposals as “waffle”, and the Tory shadow home secretary said the plan is “so weak that it barely scratches the surface”.

PMQs will be livestreamed from the House of Commons at noon on Wednesday.