EXCLUSIVE: Experts fear a surge in citizenship applications – which typically follow a year after settlement rights are obtained – will be driven by foreign nationals from poorer countries.
Andy Burnham is facing a migration crisis (Image: Getty)
Labour is facing a growing migrant citizenship crisis as foreign nationals rush to avoid a crackdown, new figures show. More than 200,000 people have been granted indefinite leave to remain since Labour vowed to tighten the rules last year. And experts fear a surge in citizenship applications – which typically follow a year after settlement rights are obtained – will be driven by foreign nationals from poorer countries.Academics from the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory analysed arrivals who first obtained a visa between 2013 and 2015.
Some 90% of Egyptians who moved to the UK between 2013 and 2015 have gone on to obtain citizenship. Researchers also revealed more than 90% of Armenians, 93% of Moldovans, 89% of Belarusians, 89% of Togolese, 87% of Pakistanis, 85% of Iranians, 83% of Bangladeshis, and 84% of Jordanians have obtained British citizenship after moving to the UK during that period.
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But Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood are facing a growing revolt from within their own Cabinet.
Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh said Ms Mahmood’s migrant crackdown will hinder attempts to create cohesion.
She said: “We need a more compassionate immigration system. The asylum process is broken and needs reform.
“Ultimately, I want to see a system based on control and compassion, with a much stronger focus on integration.
“Peckham is a good example of what can happen when communities are built deliberately and people are given the opportunity to integrate and participate. If we continually prolong the time people have to wait for settlement, we can also prolong the process of building cohesion.
“We need to raise the level of the debate, challenge divisive political rhetoric and make the case for communities like the one we have in Peckham.”
Robert Bates, Research Director at the Centre of Migration Control, said: “Citizenship is being awarded en-masse to cohorts that will never make a positive economic or social contribution to Britain. Lax immigration rules, riddled with loopholes and fraud, have saddled this country with a huge problem.
“These figures are a scandal. The dilution and degradation of British citizenship, with passports dished out like confetti, is something that must now be confronted and reversed.”
Analysis of Home Office figures show Indians, Pakistanis, Nigerians, Turks, Iranians and Filipinos made up the top five cohorts granted settlement rights in the year to June.
Chinese and American citizens are next, followed by South Africans, Bangladeshis, Sudanese nationals, Egyptians, Eritreans, Iraqis and Afghans.
And applications for citizenship are closely tracking bids for settlement rights.
The top 10 nationalities applying for citizenship include: India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Italy, Poland, Romania, United States, Philippines, Turkey and South Africa.
Research by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford said in a research paper: “Among non-EU citizens in the UK, people from higher-income countries are in general less likely to have become UK citizens than those from lower-income or politically unstable countries.
Miatta Fahnbulleh has attacked Shabana Mahmood’s plans (Image: Getty)
“For example, among non-EU migrants with permanent status who were first granted a visa in 2013–2015, 90% of those from Egypt had also become UK citizens by 2025, compared to around half of those from the United States, Australia and Canada, even though all three allow dual nationality.”
At least 5,000 more people who have lived here for five years – having legally arrived on visas – gain settlement.
The numbers are set to rise even further in the coming months as those who arrived in an unprecedented immigration surge following the pandemic gain the right to claim indefinite leave to remain.
Ms Mahmood, speaking at Labour Party conference, hinted she will cave to Labour rebels demanding her settlement rights reforms are watered down.
The Home Secretary, who is facing opposition from more than 100 of her own MPs, trade unions and even voters, insisted she will “come to a position that balances fairness”.
Shabana Mahmood is facing opposition to her plans (Image: Getty)
It comes after a top union baron – Andrea Egan, of Unison – accused Ms Mahmood of fuelling the far-right by cracking down on settlement rights. And Angela Rayner came out against the plans, potentially plunging the flagship policy into chaos.
Ms Egan told The I that care workers face a 15-year wait to apply for indefinite leave to remain.
Under Labour’s plans, migrants will be told to wait at least 10 years before they can apply for settlement rights.
Care workers face being forced to wait 15 years before they can apply for ILR, as immigration chiefs believe the health and social care visa was widely abused.
And migrants could be barred from claiming benefits unless they become British citizens.
Some 4.2 million migrants moved to the UK between 2021 and 2024.
A government source: “It is a little rich of the Tories to criticise this Government on the Boriswave. The hint is in the name: the Tories made it. We have cut net migration by over 80% from their peak.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “This government has announced reforms that mean settlement must be earned and not automatic.
“We are currently considering responses to our consultation on elements of these reforms.”
Conscription age limit for men as UK told ‘prepare for war’
If World War 3 breaks out, men of these ages could be forced to join the UK’s army and fight in Europe.
Pat McFadden discusses prospect of conscription in 2025
Preparation for WW3 worst-case scenarios could be stepped up after the head of the army called on the UK’s political leaders to start a ‘frank conversation’ with the public about preparing for war.
General Sir Roly Walker told Sky News that ‘every’ citizen will be ‘asked to make sacrifices’ and play their part in the defence of the country.
It comes in the wake of escalation between Russia and Ukraine as the US, unthinkably, appears to be siding with Russia. US President Trump has in the past week urged Ukraine to ‘get a new leader’ after signing a deal with Russia for diesel supplies, and has increasingly blamed the global price of diesel on Ukraine’s refusal to surrender to Putin, rather than the US’ war with Iran.
It’s not something anyone wants to think about, but as tensions escalate around the world, there is a possibility that World War 3 could erupt. Just this past summer, the UK government last year told people to prepare for war on British soil, and is urging better preparedness for conflict across society.
British people could be forced to join the army if WW3 breaks out (Image: Getty)
Assuming tensions continue to ramp up and a new global conflict were to erupt, there are some indicators about what would happen if the UK went to war and needed to introduce conscription, or mandatory military service, whether in a WW3 situation or not.
In WW2, conscription began for men aged between 20 and 22 in 1939, up to six months before the war actually broke out.
The UK Parliament website says: “During the spring of 1939, the deteriorating international situation forced the British government under Neville Chamberlain to consider preparations for a possible war against Nazi Germany. Plans for limited conscription applying to single men aged between 20 and 22 were given parliamentary approval in the Military Training Act in May 1939. This required men to undertake six months’ military training, and some 240,000 registered for service.”
But when war was declared, the age range was immediately widened to any man aged 18 to 41.
It continues: “On the day Britain declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939, Parliament immediately passed a more wide-reaching measure. The National Service (Armed Forces) Act imposed conscription on all males aged between 18 and 41 who had to register for service.”
The only men who weren’t called up were those who were too unfit medically, or who worked in vital industries like baking, farming, and medicine, which were vital to the war effort.
It adds: “Those medically unfit were exempted, as were others in key industries and jobs such as baking, farming, medicine, and engineering.”
By the end of 1941, women and ‘all childless widows’ between the ages of 20 and 30 were called up, while men aged up to 51 were called up for military service. Even those aged 52 to 60 were required to take part in “some form of military service.”
In 2024, Grant Shapps, who at the time was Defence Secretary, said that we are “moving from a post-war to a pre-war world”, and General Sir Patrick Sanders, Britain’s most senior army officer, called for an increase in the size of the army and said that the country needed to increase preparedness for conflict.
It isn’t clear what would happen to those refusing to serve in a potential WW3 scenario, but in WW2, British ‘conscientious objectors’ were put on trial, with some given mandatory jobs to contribute to the war effort in other ways instead.