UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks to members of small businesses during his visit to the Workshed co-working centre in Swindon, England on July 31, 2025.
Anthony Upton / POOL / AFP
The government has admitted it cannot “estimate” how many in the country on certain visas are still here.
Fearing the extent to which Nigel Farage’s Reform is biting into its support base, Labour is desperately trying to look tough on migration. But the truth is that it has absolutely no control of the issue.
Hence the ‘disappearance’ of 150,000 migrants in the UK on social care visas. Ministers admitted over the weekend they have no idea how many foreign workers hired by the sector in recent years are still working in it, and that they are unsure even whether they remain in the country.
Stephen Kinnock, the care minister, said it wasn’t even possible “to estimate the number or proportion of individuals who entered the UK on a social care work visa and who are still in the UK or working in the social care sector” (emphasis added).
Attempting to downplay the situation in an interview on GB News, Labourite commentator Nigel Nelson used the excuse of the teenager who can’t find their keys: “We haven’t lost them … we just don’t know necessarily where they are.”
Conservative figures said the revelation was “shocking,” although the route that saw thousands coming to Britain on care visas was opened under their government in the first place.
It later emerged that more than 1,000 migrants have entered the UK illegally by crossing the Channel since the government’s new deal with France got off to a poor start last Wednesday.
Official figures showed that 435 crossed the Channel on Saturday alone. Even if this new scheme really does kick into action, next to none of these will be returned to France. And those who are will be exchanged with a reportedly legal migrant from France.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
