“This week’s White Paper on Immigration is not just a missed opportunity – it risks actively damaging integration and social cohesion.
Instead of building bridges, it increases barriers: limiting access to citizenship, tightening pathways to safety, and lengthening routes to settlement. These steps undermine the fair chance people need to become new Brits and fully flourish in our society.
As a Jewish organisation, we know just how important this is. Our story in the UK is one of migration – often in escape of persecution and hatred. And this history and tradition gives us a clear yardstick for evaluating any new policy: will it uphold dignity, and will it enable justice? The proposals laid out this week appear only to do the reverse.
Our concerns not only derive from our refugee experience. Integration of the newcomer is a value that is part of our very foundation as a people: we are extolled to love stranger in the Torah.
So equally troubling is what the White Paper leaves out. It offers no answers to the deep, systemic failures in our asylum system – failures that cause real harm every day. The people we support want nothing more than to rebuild their lives, yet this plan risks leaving them feeling unwelcome and unsupported.
Politicians must understand that language matters too. The Prime Minister’s ill-judged remarks about an “island of strangers”, and references to the “incalculable damage” and “squalid chapter” of rising migration are incredibly divisive and take us in the wrong direction. These words are irresponsible and have real-world consequences: they foster fear rather than understanding.
Most Britons are rightly proud of our tradition of welcome. Our Jewish communities know how vital this has been. And we understand too just how painful it can be to be cast as outsiders, and face hostility, all because of our identity and background as migrants. While British Jews have become valued citizens, a core part of our national tapestry, this has not always been easy.
So almost a year on from the riots, we need a bold, new approach, and leadership grounded in compassion. If we aim only for control, we will fail politically as well as morally. There is, of course, a conversation to be had about how we can best support people to integrate. But this cannot be one that denigrates migrants.
Together, we can build not an island of strangers – but a nation of neighbours.”