Statement on Reform's "migrant tax"
The proposals announced by Reform UK make a mockery of the promises that EU citizens were given when the UK left the European Union.
For years, we were told that our rights would be protected by the Withdrawal Agreement. This is an international treaty between the UK and the EU, designed to provide certainty and security to the millions of people who had built their lives here in good faith, and not something which can be discarded so rashly on the whim of racists politics.
Instead though, we are once again being confronted with proposals that seek to divide workers, undermine equal treatment and turn migrants into political scapegoats. Introducing additional taxes or penalties linked to employing migrant workers risks creating a two-tier workforce, where people are judged not on their contribution but on where they come from.
EU citizens know all too well where this kind of rhetoric can lead. We have spent the last decade fighting to protect rights that were repeatedly promised to us, only to see those rights questioned, restricted and chipped away at. What we are witnessing now is yet another attempt to dismantle protections bit by bit, despite clear commitments made in the Withdrawal Agreement.
These proposals also continue the dangerous scapegoating of migrants for wider economic and social challenges. Time and again, migrants are presented as the cause of problems in public services, housing or the labour market, despite the enormous contribution we make to communities, public services and the economy. We have seen this before, and we know the real-world consequences: increased hostility, uncertainty and division.
We are not statistics on a spreadsheet. We are people who have built our lives here, we are part of the very communities which Reform seeks to divide with policies like this.
The Vote Leave campaign made a statement promising “there will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK”. Even Nigel Farage, during the Brexit referendum campaign and its immediate aftermath, argued that it would be "quite unreasonable" to ask EU citizens who had lawfully built their lives in the UK to leave. Those assurances helped convince many people that existing residents would be treated fairly and that their rights would be respected.
Today, Reform's proposals raise serious questions about whether those commitments were ever truly meant to endure. EU citizens and our families should not have to live in constant fear that the rights guaranteed to us under a binding, hard fought for, international treaty will become the subject of endless political attacks.
Reform has already made it clear that it has no regard for international agreements though. They have clearly stated that they intend to leave some of the most fundamental human rights treaties. This is not only about EU citizens. Our concerns are for all migrants living in the UK should Reform achieve its aims.
The UK made a promise to millions of people. That promise must be honoured in full, and politicians should stop using migrants and minority communities as convenient targets in pursuit of political gain.
As we approach the ten-year anniversary of the Brexit vote we will be at Parliament on the 23rd June for a Mass Lobby calling for our rights to be protected. Today’s news shows just how far we still have to go to ensure they are.