Immigration Bill Passes as 14 Labour MPs Rebel and Burnham Backs It
The government’s immigration Bill cleared its Commons second reading late last night by 264 votes to 90, a majority of 174, with 14 Labour backbenchers rebelling. Andy Burnham, the prime minister-in-waiting, voted in favour, as expected — his first significant vote since returning to Parliament and a clear signal of continuity on migration before he takes office. Among the rebels, Nadia Whittome voted against; Stella Creasy and Tony Vaughan abstained. There were no frontbench resignations.
The size of the majority, and the modest scale of the rebellion, settle the first test of the Burnham era before it has formally begun: the revolt that nearly eighty MPs’ letter had threatened produced fourteen votes against and a handful of abstentions, not a crisis. The Bill itself is a substantial tightening — doubling the qualifying period for permanent settlement to ten years, replacing refugee and humanitarian statuses with a single protection model, restricting the use of Article 8 human-rights claims to immediate family, closing modern-slavery loopholes, and making asylum seekers repay some support costs. The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, cast it as the price of public confidence: “unless we restore control we will lose the British people’s support entirely.” A linked amendment would let her override the law blocking the deportation of the freed Rochdale grooming ringleader Shabir Ahmed. Watch the committee stage for concessions, the size of any future rebellions, and how the vote shapes Burnham’s opening days.