LONDON: Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick has pledged to “severely restrict visas” to people from India if it does not accept the return of around 1lakh illegal migrants in the UK, if he becomes Tory leader and the next PM.
Jenrick, one of four remaining candidates in the race to replace Rishi Sunak, has set out plans for a fivefold increase in deportations of people living illegally in the UK.
In a statement, he pledged to end foreign aid and “put severe restrictions on visas” for countries refusing to cooperate with returns. The countries he named in the firing line for accepting UK visas and not cooperating with returns are Vietnam and India.
He said Indian nationals were granted 2.5lakh visas in 2023 to come to the UK to work, visit and study. Yet an estimated 1lakh Indians live illegally in the UK and “returns remain stuck in the hundreds.”
He said it was time to “play hardball with these countries and refuse to issue visas until they agree to take back their citizens who are living illegally in the UK.”
In May 2021, the UK and India signed a migration and mobility MoU which was meant to assure the return of illegal Indian nationals to India. Over the course of 2023, just 22,807 illegal migrants were removed, of which 15% (3,439) were Indian. Jenrick says under his plan, total removals will reach more than 1lakh per year.
Other countries Jenrick singled out were Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Ethiopia, which he said were not accepting returns, despite receiving millions in UK aid.
“The govt must stop other countries exploiting our generosity by imposing severe visa restrictions and restricting foreign aid to countries that do not take back their nationals living here illegally,” he said.
The former immigration minister has come top in the two parliamentary hustings held so far and is likely to make it to the final ballot of party members. Home Office officials told TOI that a visa ban was not policy of the current Labour-led govt.
However, health secretary Wes Streeting this week called on NHS bosses to stop “nicking” doctors and nurses from other countries and to train British talent instead. Speaking on the GB News Chopper’s Political Podcast he said the NHS and social care system was “over reliant” on overseas workers.
Indians make up the second largest nationality working in the NHS after Britons.