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LONDON: Britain’s home secretary proposed strict new rules for migrants seeking to settle in the UK, as the ruling Labour party bolstered its fight against the hard right at its annual conference.
Migrants looking to remain indefinitely will have to have a job, not claim benefits, and undertake volunteer community work under plans designed to claw back support among voters drawn to the anti-immigrant Reform UK party, whose popularity is soaring.
Confronting Reform, led by firebrand Nigel Farage, is the main theme of Labour’s four-day gathering in Liverpool, northwest England.
Currently, migrants with family in Britain who have lived there for five years qualify for “indefinite leave to remain” — permanent residence — as do those who have lived legally in the UK for 10 years on any visa.

Eligible applicants meeting these thresholds also earn the right to live, work, and study in the UK, as well as to apply for benefits and naturalize as British citizens.
But in a major policy shift, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was to tell the Labour conference that migrants would have to make social security contributions, claim no benefits, have a clean criminal record, and volunteer in their community in order to stay.
The government will consult on the changes later this year, according to a Labour Party press release.
The announcement comes shortly after Reform, which is currently leading in national polls, stated that it would eliminate “indefinite leave to remain” altogether, with migrants instead required to reapply for visas every five years.
This would apply to the hundreds of thousands of people who already have the right to remain.
“These measures draw a clear dividing line between the Labour government and Reform, whose recent announcement ... would force workers, who have been contributing to this country for decades, to leave their homes and families,” said the Labour Party statement.
Embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday called Reform’s plan “racist” and “immoral,” adding it would “tear the country apart.”
He is under pressure to convince elements of his center-left party that he is the right leader to take on Reform, and has urged the party to unite for the “fight of our lives” against Farage, a keen admirer of US President Donald Trump.
The battle over immigration takes place against a challenging economic backdrop, with government finances constrained by persistent inflation and high borrowing costs.
In her first speech to the Labour conference as home secretary, Mahmood will say that migrants should learn English to a high standard and that she will be a “tough” minister.
Mahmood, a qualified barrister who was born in Britain to parents of Pakistani descent, will warn party members that a failure to tackle irregular migration will mean that “working people will turn away from us ... and seek solace in the false promises” of Farage.
More than 100 organizations have combined forces to write to Mahmood, urging her “to end the scapegoating of migrants and performative policies that only cause harm.”
British and French authorities have struggled to stem a flow of migrants making the perilous journey by boat across the Channel to reach the UK.
Some 895 people arrived on UK shores on Saturday alone aboard 12 small boats, according to the British government, with a record 125 crammed onto just one boat.
But a number of fatalities over the weekend brought the death toll from illegal crossings to at least 27 since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP tally based on official data.
Some 32,000 people have managed to reach the UK coast so far this year.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, facing a difficult budget next month, also addressed the conference on Monday, to “vow to invest in Britain’s renewal” and announce new plans to get young people into work.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told the gathering the foreign policy choice at the next general election, due in 2029, would be between Labour and a “chaotic right-wing ideology.”

LONDON: Denmark on Monday called for an end to the Gaza war and expressed readiness to “build on” the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while stopping short of recognizing Palestinian statehood.

Denmark is the only Scandinavian country that has yet to recognize Palestine.

Christina Markus Lassen, the Danish permanent representative to the UN, told the General Assembly: “The keys to recognition of a Palestinian state can no longer lie in the hands of the Israeli government. The Palestinians themselves must become masters of their own destiny.”

Nine countries recognized Palestinian statehood in September: the UK, Canada, Australia, Portugal, France, Monaco, Luxembourg, Malta, and most recently San Marino.

“Israel has a right to self-defense, but what’s going on in Gaza right now has nothing to do with self-defense,” Lassen said.

“A man-made famine is spreading. Thousands of civilians are being killed. The humanitarian catastrophe is of unbearable scale. It must be brought to an end immediately ... The war in Gaza needs to stop.”

Copenhagen has been a traditional supporter of Israel, and Danish officials have refrained from depicting what is happening in Gaza as a genocide, a term that several EU and UN officials have used recently.

The two-state solution remains the only solution to lasting peace for two peoples, both deserving of security, both deserving of dignity

Christina Markus Lassen

However, pressure is mounting on the Danish government to use its current presidency of the EU to push Israel to end the war and comply with international humanitarian law.

AkademikerPension, a primary Danish teachers’ pension fund valued at $24 billion, divested its investments in Israel last week.

It is the second Scandinavian fund to do so, following Norway’s sovereign wealth fund — the world’s largest — which withdrew investments in Israeli companies in August.

Lassen said last week’s UN conference on the two-state solution, co-chaired by �������� and France, has “clearly demonstrated that the momentum is growing,” and “Denmark is prepared to build on” the initiative.

“The two-state solution remains the only solution to lasting peace for two peoples, both deserving of security, both deserving of dignity,” she added. “We’re witnessing a renewed energy and enthusiasm for peace based on the two-state solution.”

Lassen called for reforming the UN, and endorsed calls for the expansion of the Security Council to improve its effectiveness, noting that “the costs of inaction are felt across the world” in conflicts in Gaza, Haiti, Sudan, Myanmar, the Sahel region and Afghanistan.

“The UN is as essential as ever. Without the UN, the world would be in a much worse state,” she said.