Romanian workers harvest the grape crop in an English vineyard in Sussex (Alamy)

3 min read29 min

It is also something that the people we represent as MPs really care about. Wanting to explore new ways to engage with the public to ensure that these voices were included in our work, we went outside of Westminster and into communities to really get to grips with how immigration questions were perceived and experienced.

Working with partners at Demos and Kings College London, we have set up a programme of deliberative engagement events across the country. At each one, around 30 people come together, reflecting the make-up of the local area, including different political opinions and backgrounds. Experts on immigration then highlight the various factors that need to be weighed up and answer any questions people may have. Participants discuss the issues together before developing and agreeing on the principles that they think should underpin government priorities and policies.

Of course, it’s impossible to cover every element of immigration over the course of one weekend. So we asked, in light of the government’s commitment to cut net migration, how should work-related immigration be reduced? This policy not only determines who can come here to live and work but also has wider impacts – on public services, the economy and social cohesion.

We are going into this with an open mind. We want to understand where there are points of consensus and where there may be disagreement. Do different areas of the country have different concerns or are there common themes nationwide? Are we getting it right in understanding what is really important to our voters and how we explain and manage the difficult policy trade-offs?

The first event took place last month in Seaton Delaval, in the North East of England, and I want to sincerely thank all those who took part. There was possibly some initial scepticism about how the discussion would go. It can be a daunting prospect to come into a new environment and discuss such a potentially heated topic with people you have only just met. The main concern was whether their voices would be heard – would this just be a day of discussion in Seaton Delaval or would it have an impact in Westminster? On the Home Affairs Committee we will be taking note of what we learn and making sure it is central to how we continue scrutiny of the government’s approach to work-based immigration.

But the value isn’t just in what we as politicians can gain from it. There was a real sense that those who took part had gained new perspectives and improved understanding of the complex factors that go in to deciding the UK’s approach to work visas. This came not only from understanding the range of potential consequences of immigration decisions, but in engaging with and learning from each other. There was a real willingness to understand things from someone else’s viewpoint, to listen and discuss.

We will be holding further sessions in the coming months, in Scotland and the East Midlands, ahead of publishing our findings in September.

Robbie Moore is Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley, and a member of the Home Affairs Committee

19 June 2020: No 10 gathering to celebrate the PM’s birthday | Image by: Gavin Rodgers / Alamy

4 min read12 min

“Surprise!” A 52nd birthday is not one of the big ones, and I had been grateful for the books and DVDs that had greeted me that morning when I woke. I had not, heading downstairs in search of breakfast, been expecting my wife to jump out at me with a candle-laden cake.

So, I did experience a moment of sympathy for Boris Johnson, whose own birthday surprise, way back in the 2020 Covid lockdown, would ultimately see him fined by police. After all, as arch-Johnson loyalist Conor Burns would explain when the prime minister’s birthday had become a national scandal, “it was not a premeditated, organised party. He was, in a sense, ambushed with a cake”.

(Before we go any further, let’s note one clear political lesson immediately: if Conor Burns is running your media strategy, you’re in trouble. With allies supplying descriptions of your troubles this vivid, who needs enemies?)

For those struggling to remember exactly which illegal Downing Street party this was, on 19 June 2020 staff were invited into the cabinet room for lunchtime drinks and sandwiches to mark the prime minister’s 56th birthday. It was a surprise gathering for Johnson, who had been out visiting a school. Also ambushed were Rishi Sunak and senior civil servant Simon Case, who had turned up expecting to join a meeting about Covid. Adding a touch of sophistication was interior designer Lulu Lytle, who had been measuring up the Downing Street apartment for wallpaper, gold or otherwise. Performing the ambush was a union jack cake.

Photos of the event suggest “awkward workplace gathering” rather than “bacchanalian orgy”. And while it was a great deal more party than anyone else in Britain was allowed that month, it was pretty mild by Downing Street standards. The previous evening, we now know, had seen a pizza’n’prosecco event that ran until 3am, featuring karaoke, vomit and a “minor altercation”.

The ironic icing is that the originator of ‘cakeist’ political philosophy was undone partly by the having, and then eating, of an actual cake

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It’s understandable, then, that Johnson didn’t think the gathering was that big a deal. Indeed, one of the things that has always outraged him was that his birthday celebrations had been reported when they happened, without exciting any adverse comment. The brief, muted celebration had been a nice piece of colour in stories about the government’s battle against the killer disease. It wasn’t until January 2022 that the story came back to bite the prime minister, as an element of the Partygate scandal.

Which brings us, I considered as I nibbled my own delicious, moist, birthday cake, to the second lesson: context matters.

When Johnson’s birthday was first reported, it was part of a narrative: a stoic prime minister leading a national battle against a virus that had nearly killed him. Who could begrudge his team a moment of levity? The second time the cake ambush came up, it was part of a story of a chaotic administration that had imposed heartbreaking restrictions on the nation while its own members were indulging in drives to Barnard Castle, office affairs and an awful lot of parties.

The ironic icing is that the originator of “cakeist” political philosophy was undone partly by the having, and then eating, of an actual cake.

But for his fans, the tragedy of Johnson is that he was a Merrie England leader who was at his most popular at a moment of national misery.

For a few weeks in 2020, he looked like he might have proved his critics wrong: he really was the man to steer the ship through the storm. He had, in adversity, found his finest hour.

And then he was undone, ambushed by a cake.

New independent chief inspector of borders and immigration John Tuckett

9 min read2 min

John Tuckett spent much of his career in the Royal Navy, but witnessing the rescue of 60 migrants crammed into a rubber dinghy from one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes brought home the stakes at play in his new job.

“When you see things at first hand, it obviously hits you more so than when you read about it in the newspapers or see pictures,” explains the new independent chief inspector of borders and immigration (ICIBI). “Seeing the kind of conditions they’re in, it really strikes you very forcibly what they’re experiencing.”

Since starting the ICIBI job in October, the 74-year-old has been busily visiting frontline outposts: aboard a rescue boat going out from Ramsgate; to Manston, where small boat arrivals are first processed; to asylum accommodation sites such as Wethersfield; and to detention centres where foreign national offenders are kept.

It has been particularly intense over the last few weeks: “I haven’t spent two consecutive nights in the same bed. It’s been all over the place.”

Born to research chemist parents, Yorkshire-bred Tuckett read natural sciences, later narrowed down to chemical engineering, at Cambridge, before enlisting.

Entering as a welfare executive officer, he spent 17 years in the Royal Navy and rose to the rank of submarine commander – which required passing the famous ‘Perisher’ course, one of the toughest military tests in the world.

There are documentaries from the 80s showing young men who look twice their age, sweating under the pressure of it, fag in hand (yes, in the submarine). Its name is both a play on ‘periscope’ and because if an applicant fails, their submarine career ends that day, and they never go aboard again.

“I can still remember it vividly,” Tuckett recalls. “I’d say it was probably the most challenging course, intellectually, physically and mentally, that I’ve ever done…

“You were organised into teams of six students, and you then had a senior officer called your teacher, and teacher’s role, frankly, was to put you under pressure to see whether you could make it or not. And if he thought you could take more pressure, he applied more pressure, and he went on applying it.”

Some could bear it; others would quit or be thrown off the course. “It taught me a huge amount and about planning, managing people, managing yourself,” he says. On the ‘Hunter Killers’, nuclear-powered subs not carrying Trident missiles, he would be away for two or three months at a time.

Did he have to manage dangerous situations? “Oh, yes, lots and lots. Someone used to say that being a submariner was 95 per cent sheer boredom, four per cent interesting, and one per cent sheer bloody terrifying when everything went wrong. And it’s not a bad analysis.”

The House suggests it sounds a bit like the Home Office, and Tuckett laughs.

“I’m my own person. I’m John Tuckett. I’m not David Bolt. I’m not David Neal. And I’ve made it my job to try and build a new relationship”

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The inspector says the Home Office is currently trying to drive “a very complex day-to-day operation”, which is “overlaid by an awful lot of change”, while “it is itself suffering, experiencing, financial cutbacks as part of the Spending Review settlement”.

“It’s a classic change challenge,” he summarises. “There is a natural bandwidth to what any organisation can do in both doing the day job, the operation side of it, and undertaking major change as well.”

“But it is particularly challenging given the size and political sensitivity of the whole immigration agenda,” Tuckett continues. “People use the word toxic. It is a toxic environment. It only takes one little thing to go wrong, and suddenly it becomes headline news.”

Implementing the rule change that will see asylum claimants have their cases reviewed every 30 months, for example, “will be a challenge” – and one that the ICIBI expects to look at.

But with no reports published under Tuckett so far, the press attention around him has focused on the revelation at his appointment that he was resident in Finland with his wife and children, and believed he could work partly from home. Keir Starmer was forced to clarify that Tuckett had to do the job here.

“I do the job full-time in the UK, and I’m speaking to you now from my UK base, my UK home. I still have a family home in Finland, and my wife is out there, and I meet her there as and when I can. But I do this job here totally from within the UK,” Tuckett tells The House today.

Three-quarters of his staff – about 26 currently – are home-based, including some who go to the London office when required. “The vast majority of our work is done like we’re doing now – on Teams. Absolutely the vast majority of it, whether that’s internal or external work. Though, when we’re doing inspections, the teams will physically go out to a site and talk with people face-to-face, and that’s very, very valuable.”

And are the costs of commuting from Finland and the UK accommodation being paid out of his own pocket, rather than expenses? “Absolutely, yes.”

Notably, Tuckett reveals that his first six months in this role have not included a meeting with Shabana Mahmood. He is not fussed, however.

“The Home Secretary is a very, very busy person indeed,” he says. “I’m quite comfortable with not meeting her at the very, very early stage. In some respects, it’d be much more valuable if I met her at this stage now, when I’ve got some understanding of the system and I can feed back.”

“The word inspection is a bit of an unfortunate one. It immediately gets people on the defensive”

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Instead, Tuckett says he has developed a “delightful” relationship with her two relevant deputies – migration minister Mike Tapp and border security and asylum minister Alex Norris.

“Both of them have been highly supportive,” Tuckett reports. “One of the things I’ve tried to do right from the start is to build relationships with the Home Office at the senior levels, not only with the politicians but with the permanent secretary and the second permanent secretary and all the director generals.”

This approach is all part of his mission to overhaul the relationship between the body he now leads – the only one officially tasked with scrutinising the UK’s border and immigration functions – and the Home Office, after it blew up under the Conservatives.

David Neal, the ICIBI appointed by Priti Patel in 2021, took such a critical approach that it got him the sack. He described the conditions at Manston as “wretched”, slammed the Bibby Stockholm barge failure as a “shambles”, and openly complained when Patel and Robert Jenrick neglected to meet him.

David Bolt, who preceded Neal and also served as interim chief following his departure, was candid too: he said last year he did not think the government’s ambition to end the use of asylum hotels by the next election would be achieved, and was not optimistic about its “smash the gangs” goal either.

“There has been some degree of not so… how do I put it? Not-so-positive relationships in the past, and there is a bit of legacy from those still around. But I’m my own person. I’m John Tuckett. I’m not David Bolt. I’m not David Neal. And I’ve made it my job to try and build a new relationship based on: how do we work together?”

Tuckett sees his role as one of a critical friend: “I don’t see any problem with the phrase.” He even baulks slightly at the term “inspection”: “The word inspection is a bit of an unfortunate one. It immediately gets people on the defensive.”

Neal, who was critical of Home Office redactions to his reports supposedly on grounds of national security, has called for the ICIBI to be able to publish reports independently – as other inspectorates are empowered to do.

Although five completed inspections are still awaiting publication, including one from May 2025, Tuckett does not make the same demand. “That’s how the system works. There are arguments for it. There are arguments against it.” Redactions for security reasons are “a very sensible measure”, he adds.

Tuckett “can’t really comment” on why relations broke down under Neal but insists he is going to follow exactly how his role is described in the UK Borders Act that created it.

“My role is very clearly laid down in statute, which is to bring about an increase in the efficiency and effectiveness and the consistency of the functions carried out by the Home Office teams,” he says. “Sounds an awful phrase, doesn’t it? ‘Efficiency, effectiveness and consistency.’ But that’s what the act says.”

As part of this reset, he will produce shorter reports and speed up their delivery. “Rather than have long inspections that would last upwards of six, seven months at a time before a report was produced, I’m trying to shorten that.” His predecessors, he says, “selected a fairly broad range of a subject and then let the inspection go wherever the evidence took them” but “I’m not doing that”. This will make the inspectorate “agile and versatile”.

The ICIBI’s “prime customer” is clearly no longer the immigration advisers, think tanks and journalists who lap up reams of data and pounce on criticisms of government, but Home Office teams.

Yet even Tuckett does not sound particularly optimistic about the chances of smashing the gangs. Small boat arrivals to Britain are, he says, “a bit like a mutating Covid virus”.

“You don’t quite know where it’s going to come up next, in what kind of variant. At some stage, I’m sure, the gangs behind the migrant boats – there will be ways and means found of thwarting their efforts. But then the illegal migrants will just find other ways of coming across.

“We’ve seen that in previous years – the shift from whether they were coming across in lorries, that went down, and now they’re coming across in boats. And what will happen after that? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.” 

Joël Reland argues that the UK government’s plans for closer EU alignment may prove more difficult than anticipated.

The government is sending ever stronger signals about its plans for closer alignment with the EU. At the start of the month, the Prime Minister promised that this summer’s UK-EU summit “will not just ratify existing commitments made at last year’s summit” but “be more ambitious” in seeking “closer economic cooperation” with the EU.

Then, last weekend, briefing emerged which suggests that a forthcoming bill could grant ministers powers to adopt EU law in a range of sectors much wider than those where the UK committed to alignment at last year’s summit.

But there remains a curious disconnect between the government’s ever-bolder rhetoric on alignment, and its actions. Our new divergence tracker shows that, in many of the areas where the government has previously expressed in interest in closer alignment – like chemicals, products and vehicles – it is doing little to close regulatory gaps.

Take chemicals, where a new ‘PFAS’ plan (seeking to address the widespread presence of harmful, long-lasting ‘PFAS’ substances in everyday goods) is strikingly less ambitious than the EU’s. The EU has restricted the presence of PFAS in items including toys, food packaging, consumer textiles, cosmetics and some firefighting foams. The UK plan proposes only one consultation (on firefighting foams).

Meanwhile, a recent piece of legislation ends the ‘automatic’ requirement for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to consider all hazard opinions published by the European Chemicals Agency – which could exacerbate existing gaps on substance restrictions.

On product safety, last year the government gave itself powers to replicate EU rule changes under the Product Regulation and Metrology Act (PRMA), yet those powers have only been exercised once – to mirror EU rules on noise emissions testing for outdoor equipment. The government says that this avoids ‘unnecessary divergence’ in product standards which ‘could negatively impact on growth’ – which begs the question of why they have not sought to align in the many, many other areas of divergence (on everything from toy safety and online marketplaces to charger types and vehicle emission testing) that could have similar effects.

What explains this inaction? It does not seem to be for want of trying – the government bothered to pass the PRMA after all. Rather, it seems to be down to a lack of anticipation about the practical difficulties. The UK seemed to initially think that ‘voluntary’ alignment – where it unilaterally mirrors EU rule changes – was a stealthy way to plug regulatory gaps without inviting charges of becoming a rule taker. But it is in fact proving a Sisyphean task.

In any given sector, the UK simply does not have the administrative capacity to keep pace with all EU rule changes. The EU is a well-oiled administrative machine which has been doing this work for over half a century. It has a large bureaucracy and suite of regulators to oversee reforms.

The UK, by contrast, will have only a few officials in a range of different departments tracking EU legislative developments. That is enough to spot some of the most critical reforms on the horizon, and perhaps belatedly initiate a handful of pieces of mirror legislation – but nothing more. What’s more, voluntary alignment does not remove any of the trading red tape which Brexit created – it only avoids the creation of additional frictions over time.

The government seems to have belatedly realised this, and instead alighted on ‘dynamic alignment’ as an alternative. Under this model, as per the SPS deal, the UK explicitly becomes a ‘rule taker’ – obliged to adhere to more or less the full gamut of EU law in the sector in question (including as it evolves over time) – and in return most of the Brexit-induced red tape is wiped away.

But this, too, risks being another unsatisfactory halfway house. Practically, the UK will need to do a lot of work to implement EU legislation and then maintain dynamic alignment in future. The UK must, from scratch, build significant institutional capacity to implement large swathes of EU law which it has not kept pace with, and then ensure future updates are promptly adopted.

Alignment is a job for life. Even states like Norway, which have been doing it for decades, can find it challenging – ending up with backlogs that can antagonise relations. The struggles which the UK has had in implementing even basic voluntary alignment suggests that it is far from ready for the job.

And politically, there are clear limits to how far the EU will let the UK ‘cherry pick’ the parts of the EU market to which it can dynamically align. The current set of deals under negotiation will add only a fraction of a percent to GDP by 2040, and there are very few other areas where the EU will be open to alignment, unless and until the UK accepts free movement of people and payments into the EU budget – as the precedent of Switzerland demands.

The government may soon come to find that dynamic alignment is another red herring in its attempts to offset the costs of Brexit: a high-effort, low-reward strategy which consumes a lot of administrative bandwidth while barely moving the economic dial.

By Joël Reland, Senior Researcher, UK in a Changing Europe.