Is Labour turning blue?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
While we wait for the findings of the Covid Inquiry into the decision-making during the pandemic, Shabana Mahmood has given a statement in the Commons outlining further details of Labour’s migration crackdown. The headline is that those who arrived during the so-called ‘Boriswave’ will have to wait up to 20 years before achieving settled status.
Figures within Reform are having fun with the suggestion that the Home Secretary is more aligned with them on migration, but it is perhaps fairer to say that Shabana is taking her cues from the Blue Labour movement. What is Blue Labour? And is Shabana Blue Labour?
Oscar Edmondson speaks to Isabel Hardman and Paul Embery.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:41.1 | Hello. to claim this offer now. Terms apply. Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. |
| 0:45.4 | I'm Oscar Edmondson, and I'm joined today by Isabel Hardman and the writer and trade unionist, |
| 0:50.0 | Paul Embry. Now, while we all anxiously await the findings of the COVID inquiry into the |
| 0:55.6 | decision-making of government during the pandemic, Shabana Mahmoud, the Home Secretary, has given |
| 0:59.5 | another statement in the comments, outlining the further details of Labour's migration crackdown, |
| 1:04.1 | which we will be talking about, as well as, more broadly, the sort of blue labour flavour |
| 1:09.0 | of this government. But, Isabel, just to start with, can you take us |
| 1:12.7 | through what the Home Secretary had to say in the comments today? Yeah, so she gave another statement |
| 1:17.3 | earlier today on the new route to settled status. So this is how long it's going to take for |
| 1:25.3 | people who are in this country to get indefinite leave to remain. |
| 1:29.7 | And that has been extended from five to ten years as a qualifying period. And for some, |
| 1:37.3 | they will have to wait for up to 20 years. And that will be shortened if you are in a |
| 1:43.8 | particularly in demand industry. So if you're working in the |
| 1:48.7 | NHS, the government's still consulting on how to deal with that because we do not have enough |
| 1:54.0 | home-trained doctors and nurses. And it will also be shortened if you are earning a particularly high amount of money. |
... |
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