Cabinet Splits Erupt As Angela Rayner Condemns Shabana Mahmood's Immigration Crackdown

A cabinet split has erupted after Angela Rayner condemned home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s immigration crackdown.

The communities secretary said Mahmood had “changed the goalposts” by making it harder for foreign social care workers to live in the UK permanently.

In a further headache for Andy Burnham, a former cabinet minister said he was not doing enough to boost economic growth.

The deep divisions which remain within Labour came to the fore again on the eve of the party’s annual conference in Liverpool.

Mahmood’s reforms will increase the timeline for permanent residence in the UK from five years to 15 years for foreign social care workers, and will apply to all those who have come to the country since 2021.

Speaking to The Times, Rayner said she stood by her previous criticisms that the changes are “un-British”.

Asked if she had changed her views, she: “Especially in regards to the carers, who were asked to come to this country to care for some of our most vulnerable and then we changed the goalposts years down the line, I think that’s very disruptive.

“I do have concerns about that … when you ask someone to come here and look after your most vulnerable and they spend years dedicating themselves, moving their lives here to look after our loved ones.”

But culture secretary Lisa Nandy backed Mahmood, telling Radio 4’s Today programme: “I don’t think that we’ve ever had an automatic right to citizenship for most people who come to the UK from overseas.”

She said the Home Secretary is trying to “balance the respect and gratitude that we all feel to people who come to this country, who make a contribution” with the need for an immigration system the public can have confidence in.

Meanwhile, former science secretary Peter Kyle – who was sacked by Burnham when he replaced Keir Starmer as PM – said the government needed to do more to grow the economy.

He said that should include slowing down the rollout of new rights for workers.

Kyle told the BBC: “We might need to look and have honest conversations with unions about how we sequence some of the rights going forward in order to make sure that we get growth into the economy in the shorter term.”

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