Rayner Breaks With Mahmood Over Care Workers on Conference Eve
Angela Rayner has publicly opposed the Home Secretary’s settlement plans, under which care workers could wait up to fifteen years for indefinite leave to remain rather than five. They were “asked to come to this country to care for some of our most vulnerable and then we changed the goalposts years down the line”, she said. “I think Shabana knows… I’ve not changed my view on that.” Around a hundred Labour MPs have signed a letter seeking an exemption.
The timing is the message. A senior figure choosing the eve of conference to say publicly what a hundred colleagues have already put in writing is not a slip, and Unison has a demonstration planned outside the hall on Monday to press the same case. Shabana Mahmood told the home affairs committee this week that a decision would come “very soon”, acknowledging “a lot of people wondering what rules will apply to them”, and the Prime Minister has hinted an exemption is on the table. That is the shape of the week: a government that wants to look firm on migration, and a party that recruited these workers itself and is now being asked to move the terms. Watch whether the exemption is announced from the stage or buried afterwards.