At the start of a seismic week in British politics, it is little wonder that Downing Street already has one eye on what will come next.

Daily Telegraph 

Monday April 28 2025

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Labour prepares for migration crackdown

At the start of a seismic week in British politics, it is little wonder that Downing Street already has one eye on what will come next. prepares for migration crackdown

Reform UK is expected to win as many as 425 seats at the local elections on Thursday from a standing start, as the public braces to reject both Labour and the Tories at the ballot box.

The Liberal Democrats are also primed for significant gains, while the Greens are projected to double their seats. Nigel Farage’s party is also hopeful of success in at least two regional mayoral contests.

As my colleague Ben Riley-Smith reveals today, Sir Keir Starmer is planning to retaliate by unveiling a crackdown on immigration after the elections, with a white paper expected within weeks that is likely to make it harder for foreign students on graduate visas to stay in the country.

It will put meat on the bones of a long-promised crackdown on student visas, in an attempt to show No 10 is listening to public concern on migration, the issue at the heart of the Reform offer.

But as Mr Farage and co continue to gain momentum, there is a sense that Labour has not quite grasped the scale of outright despair among the millions preparing to cast their ballots.

Sir Keir may have time on his side, with no general election expected for at least three years. But as the lessons of Rishi Sunak and his Conservative government show, talking tough on immigration is one thing. Whether or not the public are prepared to give the benefit of the doubt is quite another.

Will the Tories keep their cool?

Kemi Badenoch has acknowledged just how difficult this set of local elections will be for the Tory Party.

The leader of the Opposition has the unenviable task in her first local election campaign of defending more than 900 seats won at the height of Boris Johnson’s post-pandemic popularity.

Mrs Badenoch has faced criticism in her first six months for allowing herself to be outdone on the publicity front by Mr Farage and Reform, while her own members wish that she would develop policy faster.

The grass roots are right to fear that, in the era of the 24/7 news cycle, against the backdrop of a long-standing split on the Right for the first time in decades, Mrs Badenoch does not have as much time as she would like to think.

But talk of leadership challenges and briefings about her immediate future suggest Tory backbenchers and commentators may not have learnt anything at all from the chaos of their last few years running the country.

While the manoeuvrings of Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, are understandably raising eyebrows (those close to Mr Jenrick deny that there is any intent other than energetic support for his party), some on the Tory back benches and at senior levels of the party snipe and gripe as though they have significantly more than 121 MPs after the wipeout of last summer.

As much as a sense of failure to deliver, one of the key reasons for that historic loss was the belief that the party was disunited and ungovernable, let alone able to govern the country. The local elections next year will be a far more accurate reflection of how Mrs Badenoch is performing. How the Tories react to the results this time will be the first sign of whether they have become any more cool-headed, or if the same regicidal instincts remain.

 

 

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