The Tories’ immigration U-turn didn’t take long

Has the immigration U-turn already begun? When Home Secretary James Cleverly announced his overhaul of the legal migration system at the start of the month, it included a big crackdown on the family visa route into the UK. The Minimum Income Requirement (MIR) for a British citizen wanting to bring their foreign spouse to the UK was set to rise from £18,200 to £38,700 – a threshold thousands of pounds above the median salary in the UK.

But in the small print of the ‘legal migration statement’ released last night by the Home Office, we learn that the MIR has been watered down significantly. Instead of more than doubling the salary threshold, the new earnings requirement will be £29,000 as ‘part of a staged implementation’ – an amount below median earnings. There are no details in the document about when the MIR might rise to the full £38,700, though Rishi Sunak has suggested today the higher threshold could be implemented in early 2025 – but that’s a decision that will presumably be made in the next parliament.