Graduate visa row exposes Labour’s immigration imperative

Good morning. It’s great to be back. Thank you to Chris Cook, Lucy, Laura, Miranda, George, Georgina, Simeon, Anna and Chris Giles for standing in when I was away. I had a lovely time in the States, spending Passover with my cousins, going to museums and art galleries, and doing one of my absolute favourite morning rituals on holiday, which is to have a long breakfast and properly read the FT in a way I only ever get to do on the weekends the rest of the time. (Yes, I really am this cool.)

I wish the news agenda had been a little heavier on stories opening with “global markets soar as”, and rather less of, you know, the opposite. But, still, a holiday is a holiday and I very much enjoyed it.

There was one particular story right at the start of my trip that I think is really important in terms of the direction of the government: immigration. Some more thoughts on that below.

An old tale

One of Keir Starmer’s real pet peeves is the leaking of information. This was one of his most frequent complaints in the shadow cabinet when he was leader of the opposition, along with late arrivals. A common theme in some of the Downing Street exits of various aides has been the perception, whether fairly or not, that those who left were talking to the press when they shouldn’t have been.

As a result, there have been rather fewer red-on-red attacks than you would expect in the government and indeed in any government. So I think our story, in which there is quite a remarkable drive-by on the Department of Education from the Home Office, is striking for the lack of aftershocks during these past two weeks:

Home Office insiders are frustrated at the education department’s stance on its proposal to tighten the terms of the graduate visa, which allow overseas students to stay in the UK for up to two years after they finish their university degree, even if they are not working.

Home Office officials have taken the unusual step of privately accusing the education department of trying to lean on Universities UK, the main sector lobby group, to oppose the proposed changes.

Now if you are as bitter and jaded as I am, this looks like a very familiar story. The Home Office, asked by the prime minister to reduce the number of immigrants, proposes a policy that causes a spending department (in this case the Department for Education) to suck its teeth and go “well, we could do that, but it’s gonna cost you”. There is some back and forth in the press about it, and then eventually the prime minister weighs in on the side of the spending department. That was, essentially, the story of almost all of the past 14 years.

With UK universities facing severe financial challenges — and Labour’s already politically fraught decision to let tuition fees rise above the emotionally resonant figure of £10,000 — we would assume that when the dust settles the DfE will win and the Home Office will lose. (And, of course, in addition, given what is happening to science and academia in the US, there is a once-in-a-century opportunity for the UK to not only support a historic area of strength but to boost it further.)

Except . . . I do think it will be different this time, precisely because this type of story is, under Starmer, a) rare and b) generally leads to eruptions behind the scenes. It didn’t on this occasion, and that’s a mark of how influential home secretary Yvette Cooper is and how much, for the moment, meeting Reform voters where they are when it comes to immigration is what is driving Downing Street’s thinking.

We should take very seriously the idea that, as it stands, Labour’s other priorities, whether it be on construction, planning, growth, or the public services, are going to take a back seat to reducing the UK’s net immigration figures. It seems less likely that the looming potential changes to UK graduate visa rules next month will prioritise the crisis in the UK’s universities sector or seek to take advantage of the one unfolding in the US.

Now try this

Because my cousins live in Queens in New York City and many of my friends are spread across the other four boroughs, I spent rather a lot of time on the subway and therefore a lot of time re-reading Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy for the first time in 10 years. Because it is really very long and the writing so rich it does live with you. Although “once a decade” is about the right amount of time between re-reads it is definitely my favourite novel.

Top stories today

• ‘A bulwark against Farage’ | The Liberal Democrats have created a “Farage fighting fund” as money pours in from donors hoping the party will counter Reform UK’s growth across England and Wales.

• No extra time here | Aston Villa co-owner and Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris has blamed “years of incompetence” by the Conservatives for tax changes that he says have driven him to leave the UK.

• Former nurse at the top | A veteran NHS manager with private health sector experience has been appointed the next permanent secretary at the Department of Health, as the civil service prepares for extensive churn at the top of Whitehall.

• Sticking to the cap | Ministers are privately ruling out scrapping the two-child benefit cap despite warnings from charities that a failure to do so could result in the highest levels of child poverty since records began, the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar reports. “The cap is popular with key voters, who see it as a matter of fairness,” a government source said.