From Immigration To Living Standard: Nigerians In UK Speak On How Labour Party’s Win Will Affect Them

The “change begins now,” UK’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer said after a landslide victory in Thursday’s election that saw his party, the Labour Party, sweep 412 seats in the country’s parliament, leaving the ruling party, led by Rishi Sunak, with 121 seats.

Although pre-election polls and exit polls predicted that the Labour Party would nudge the Tories, the Conservative Party, out of the majority in the country’s Parliament, the election remains historic on several fronts.

First, the win has ended 14 years of Conservative Party rule in the UK. The Tories came to power in 2010 when they secured 258 parliamentary seats. Since 326 seats are required to have a majority, they formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, who secured 57 seats in that election.

But Thursday’s election has seen the Labour Party return to Downing Street, with Keir Starmer becoming the country’s new Prime Minister.

“Whether you voted for the Labour Party or not, in fact, especially if you did not, I say to you directly, ‘My government will serve you,'” Starmer said in his first speech as Prime Minister.

A human rights defense lawyer, Starmer ran under the banner of ‘change,’ a rather overused political word for opponents seeking to gain power.

But how will his policies and the party’s ideologies address some of the challenges facing the country?

Challenges Facing the UK

From rising inflation, the cost of living, the immigration crisis, healthcare issues, and the increasing threat and need to secure the border, the election perhaps revealed a long cry for change in Downing Street.

Reports show that residents are worse off now than they were 14 years ago when the party took over.

According to the Centre for Cities research institute, which analysed disposable incomes, Britons had on average £10,200 ($12,950) less to spend or save in total during 2010-2022.

A pre-election survey by YouGov, a polling company, shows that 52 percent of voters said the economy mattered most to them. Another 50 percent are worried about the health sector. The rising issue of immigration and asylum concerns 40 percent of voters. Housing, crime, defense, and security are other challenges facing the country that voters say matter to them.

Over 270,000 Nigerians living in the UK are, by and large, affected by these issues.

How Keir Starmer Says He’ll Tackle These Issues And How It’ll Affect Nigerians Living In UK

From recruiting 6,500 new teachers and stabilising the economy to cutting National Health Service (NHS) waiting times, the Labour Party, in what it called ‘Labour’s First Steps for Change’ in their manifesto, highlighted three other crucial challenges it said it will tackle head-on: launching a new border security command, cracking down on anti-social behaviors, and setting up Great British Energy.

The UK has faced an immigration crisis in recent years, prompting the Conservative Party to introduce several immigration policies, some of which many people have described as controversial.

In May 2023, the administration of Rishi Sunak announced new restrictions on student visa routes, substantially cutting net migration by limiting the ability of international students to bring family members.

While student visas issued to Nigerians increased exponentially by 520 percent between 2023 and 2019, there has been a downward trend in the number of student visas issued to Nigerians. In 2022, the total number of student visas issued to Nigerians was capped at 58,701, according to data from the Home Office. The following year, the number fell by 28.2 percent to 42,164.

Imisioluwa Ogunsunlade, a Nigerian living and working in the UK, believes that the Labour Party’s promises regarding immigration “sound more favorable, especially considering the stringent immigration policies introduced in the past few months by the Conservative Party.”

“I believe both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have similar goals ultimately regarding immigration. They both understand the implications of rising migration, including fewer jobs for citizens, a spike in crime rates, and more undocumented individuals living and thriving in the country,”

Ogunsunlade

He added that the Conservative Party took an aggressive position in their approach to curbing migration when they “openly declared sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.”

Termed the ‘Migration and Economic Development Partnership,’ the Sunak administration sought to relocate individuals who arrived in the UK through illegal and dangerous routes on or after January 1, 2022, to Rwanda.

It is a controversial immigration policy that has received widespread criticism, especially from the Labour Party.

Saying it would end the “wasteful” partnership with the East African country, which has cost the UK hundreds of millions of pounds, Starmer’s Labour Party promised to use the money to fund a new Border Security Command, with hundreds of new investigators, intelligence officers, and cross-border police officers.

Femi (not his real name), who recently relocated to the UK from Nigeria, told Neusroom that he believes the Conservative Party lost the election in part because of their immigration policies.

“In this election, immigrants really came out to vote against the Conservative Party,” he told Neusroom in a series of voice notes that detailed the election and its supposed impact on Nigerians living in the country.

“I think Labour Party have what looks like a policy when it comes to immigration laws. One of the major undoings of the outgoing government is their position on immigration, how they tightened all legal entry points into the country,”

Femi

Enitan Kehinde, another Nigerian living and working in the UK, believes, based on the promises the Labour Party has made, that their immigration policies suggest a more balanced and supportive system.

“The Labour Party’s approach to immigration, as outlined in their manifesto and based on the debates I’ve seen, emphasises creating a fair and manageable system that acknowledges migrants’ economic contributions while aiming to reduce net migration through a reformed points-based system,”

Kehinde

Will Labour Party Led government mean a safer UK for Nigerians living there?

Knife crime has reportedly been on the rise since the Conservative Party assumed power in 2010.

Between January 2023 and December 2023, the number of offenses involving knives or sharp instruments increased by 7 percent, according to the New Office for National Statistics. In London, where Starmer will govern from, Black Londoners account for 45 percent of the city’s knife murder victims, despite making up only 13 percent of the city’s population.

Ogunsunlade, while noting that the election outcome might not necessarily affect his rights and opportunities as a Nigerian living in the country, said that it could impact how secure he feels.

“The election could impact how secure I feel when walking on the streets of Peckham or Woolwich in London,” he said, adding that he’s optimistic about Labour’s win.

“Based on their policies, I would lean towards the Labour Party, not least because of the breath of fresh air but also due to their more promising pledges in areas like security, immigration, NHS, and care,” he said.

Although Britain is ‘not close to being a racially just society,’ according to a two-year research project, the UK has become ethnically diverse in recent years, with over 20 percent of the population being from a minority ethnic group.

Although Femi said that “there are pockets of racial discrimination here and there,” he noted that there has been a global effort to address racial discrimination and inequality, and he wouldn’t necessarily give the credit to the outgoing Conservative Party.

However, Kehinde said that some policies implemented by the Conservative Party were marred with controversies.

“The Conservatives’ efforts to address racial inequality have been hinged on a lot of policy initiatives they launched in the areas of education and workplace fairness, targeting issues like maternal health outcomes for ethnic minorities,” she said.

Although she noted that those approaches have faced criticisms, “particularly concerning the disproportionate impact of stop-and-search practices on ethnic minorities,” she questioned how actionable the Labour Party’s robust plan on racial equality is.

“The Labour Party wants to extend equal pay protections to ethnic minorities, address dual discrimination, and require public services to report on staffing and pay by ethnicity, but is this plan actually actionable?” she asked.

For Nigerians living in Nigeria, a new government in Downing Street could mean a re-examination of the UK’s foreign policy, partnership, and how they conduct business with other countries, including Africa’s most populous nation.

In February, Kemi Badenoch, UK’s Minister for Business and Trade, was in Nigeria for a three-day UK-Nigeria partnership. The visit saw both countries sign the Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership (ETIP) deal.

While it remains unclear how the signed deal and other economic ties between Nigeria and the UK will proceed with the new government, political analyst Dr. Robert Ekat said that the Labour Party has values that are aligned with Nigeria.

“The Labour Party has certain values which suggest favourable relations with Nigeria, such as social democracy, economic empowerment, social justice, etc. They align with the Nigerian government’s goals,” he said.