Brandon To: The missing pieces of Labour’s immigration policy

Brandon To is a Politics graduate from UCL and a Hong Kong BN(O) immigrant settled in Harrow.

Labour insists its new immigration framework is “fair and controlled”. But beneath the branding lies a system that still cannot answer the most basic question in this debate: who should Britain actually welcome – and why?

The first problem is how badly the income threshold misjudges contribution. Instead of offering clarity, Labour has reached for the simplest lever available: a one-size-fits-all salary threshold (£12,570) relating to settlement. It sounds neat. It looks strict. But it fails to attract the right people Britain should want.

Imagine a financially secure retired couple arriving with millions in savings, drawing no pension and making no demands on the state. Labour’s rules would still bar them, simply because they have no salary. At the same time, the system turns away the very people Britain should want to keep: high-achieving graduates from our own universities, fluent in English and trained to British standards. Their potential contribution over a lifetime is enormous, yet Labour’s model cannot recognise future value, only today’s payslip.

However, anyone ticking a salary box, regardless of their actual behaviour or long-term cohesion impact, gets waved through, often with routes that allow extended-family migration Britain can no longer absorb.

Britain needs an approach that evaluates economic stability, future potential and integration impact. Labour’s model does none of these things.

But the deeper failure sits elsewhere.

Labour also refuses to confront the issue shaping public anxiety more than any other: integration capacity.

Britain is now home to areas where newcomers live, work, shop and socialise entirely outside British norms. These parallel societies do not emerge from malice, but from political neglect.

If we want cohesion, we must manage where and how people settle. That is why I propose an Integration Capacity Limit, drawn from Singapore’s stabilisation model. When a borough exceeds 50 per cent foreign-born, new settlement should pause. Newcomers should be redirected to regions with stronger capacity for integration.

An annual Integration Capacity Index would assess each area’s cohesion based on crime rates, language proficiency, community tensions, and participation rates. Councils (or even wards at a lower level) that deliver strong integration outcomes should be rewarded with increased funding. This moves the debate beyond crude numbers to something more important: whether integration is actually happening.

Integration itself also needs to be taken seriously. Labour’s model assumes integration will magically happen if people are left alone. Or by studying the “Life in the UK test,” which has only 24 questions and could be easily passed through question-bank memorisation.

Before ILR, every newcomer should complete a stronger civic integration pathway: thorough British civic education, public-order expectations, neighbourhood etiquette, and benchmarks for community participation. And yes — a final civic test. One that truly tests how prepared the immigrant is to integrate into British life.

Britain offers safety and opportunity. In return, newcomers must adopt British norms, laws, civic identity, and the constitutional culture anchored by the monarchy. These principles bind us together and make integration possible. Labour cannot say this clearly without provoking its activist wing. Conservatives can, and should.

Finally, there is illegal immigration. Labour’s position remains muddled. They still leave open discretionary routes that ultimately lead to settlement, signalling that illegal arrival need not permanently close the door.

That is not deterrence. This is incentive.

Britain must restore the moral distinction between:

1. legal migrants who integrate and contribute, and
2. illegal entrants who bypass the system altogether.

My proposal is simple and humane: illegal entrants receive no settlement route, ever. Temporary protection only, with return home once safe, just as Denmark does. This approach is firm but proportionate, and it removes the long-term pull factor driving dangerous crossings.

Immigration fails when four foundations collapse: when contribution is poorly measured, when integration capacity is ignored, when civic identity is neglected, and when deterrence is replaced with ambiguity. Labour’s policy stumbles on all four.

A Conservative alternative should rebuild those foundations. Select the right people, place them in the right places, align them with the nation’s civic core, and draw a firm line between those who follow the rules and those who do not.

Only then can Britain remain confident without being complacent, and truly cohesive rather than merely inclusive.