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We begin with the Home Secretary's foreword, which is something else. She opens with her own family's migration story, declares herself a patriot, then lays out a system designed to keep people like her parents in constant limbo for a decade or more. The lack of self-awareness is kinda mindblowing.

The first pillar is "Character". But what the policy actually measures is criminal records, English, and earnings. Those are things you can observe: character is not. Character is morals, resilience, humaniness, the capacity for growth. The state cannot assess it and shouldn't pretend to try.

The word is revealing and it matters. If you tell people this is about "character" you're saying those who fail it are deficient as human beings. Not that they didn't meet a practical requirement: that they weren't a good enough person. Who do they think they are, to presume to say such a thing?

12/2/26, 5:56 pm1 repost6 likes

Across the whole thing, they mistake measurability for meaning. A person who's raised kids here, made friends, participated in local life is integrated whether or not they can pass a (fatuous) multiple choice exam. Real integration is lived and worked, but lived things don't fit on forms. Don't try!

And then there are the children. A child brought here at 3 whose parents face a 15-year wait could grow up entirely in this country and still face years of uncertainty about whether they can stay. Children don't choose to migrate. Treating such a child's belonging as provisional is terribly cruel.

bm.wel.byWhat ‘earned settlement’ tells us about belonging, character, and the country we are becoming - bmwelby's blogOver the weekend I spent some time responding to the Home Office consultation (it closes in mid-February) on proposed changes to settlement and what it calls “earned residence”. Please engage with it....

Like @bmwelby.bsky.social said: this should mostly be a policy about how to help people to feel at home and build a good life here, with a bit of sensible protection to help us to avoid letting in too many murderers. bm.wel.by/2026/01/14/w...