The Home Secretary has announced plans to implement her "Earned Settlement" policy agenda. These are the policies we have been campaigning against, along with hundreds of community members, for the last year and a half. 

Hundreds of thousands of people replied to the Home Office’s consultation and told the Home Secretary how harmful these policies would be for them and their communities. The sums underpinning the economic rationale for the policy have been thoroughly disproved. The context of net migration in the UK has also completely shifted, and continues to fall sharply. And yet, the Home Secretary has not listened or altered course. You may have seen reports that her plans have been "softened", but this is misleading – this remains the most devastating attack on the right to settle in the UK we have ever seen. 

Other than a concession for some care workers, whose voices have rightly been heard, for almost everyone, settlement in the UK will be much harder to achieve. For workers who earn below £50k, 5 years will become 10. For parents of British children who have claimed the support they need to get by, 10 years may become 20. For recognised refugees who have sought safety in the UK, 5 years will become 20 or even 30. And for many, settlement – the secure knowledge of a safe future – will be out of reach altogether. 

We know the anxiety and uncertainty of this news is hard to bear. We are still working through the detail that has been announced and will get information out to our communities as soon as we can, to share what we think this will mean for people in different circumstances.  

For now, know that we stand in solidarity with you, our community. We share the anger that our voices have been ignored and that the government is going ahead with policies they know will cause so much suffering and harm to places like ours in Greater Manchester.  

Shabana Mahmood and Andy Burnham know that earned settlement will wreck their chances of achieving government ambitions on ending homelessness, ending child poverty, having a growing economy and strong communities. They are sacrificing this in a misguided attempt to nullify the far right, whose figureheads have already made clear they will not be appeased. At a time where rising racism is making people feel unsafe even in their homes, these policies pile on more fear and distress and make our communities less safe. 

Thank you to everyone who has stood strong against earned settlement: responding to the public consultation, writing to MPs, joining us on the streets of Manchester and at the Houses of Parliament. We will keep doing all that we can to stop earned settlement.