Andy Burnham is considering exempting foreign care workers from Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s planned visa crackdown, which would extend their route to permanent residency from five years to ten, as part of his proposal for a new National Care Service.

Care workers were one of the largest groups who came in the so-called “Boriswave”, which saw unprecedented levels of legal immigration under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It has been calculated that 1 in every 25 people in the UK today came between 2021-24.

Between 2022 and 2024, the government issued 249,594 main visas on the Health and Care visa, with another 366,672 visas issued to dependants. Under the current rules, they will be eligible for permanent residency after five years of work, a deadline that many will soon reach. Estimates of the long-term fiscal cost vary, but they are often in the billions.

Carving out an exemption for care workers is poor policy, not least because the evidence is that low-skilled workers like them will switch jobs once they have residency. That means that any exemption to benefit the care sector will likely only be temporary.

Once they have residency, it only takes another year, a few fairly easy tests and a small fee to acquire citizenship. Currently the language requirement is only B1 level, which is the intermediate level where you can write basic emails but would struggle with anything more complex. Once they are British nationals, such people and their children will be a permanent part of the nation.

The most recent immigration statistics show that in the year ending March 2026, there were 237,000 grants of citizenship. That’s actually a decline from last year, when numbers were closer to a quarter of a million. Such huge numbers mean that the country is changing fast, yet there is very little debate about the subject.

That is typical of British immigration policy. Before the Second World War, nearly everyone in the British Empire was a British subject, able to move around largely freely. The high cost of travel and the lack of any welfare state meant that in practice very few people did, with much more emigration from Britain than migration to it.

Following the end of the war, the Dominions began to develop their own citizenship laws, which necessitated working out what British citizenship meant. A classic compromise was created, allowing Commonwealth citizens to have many of the same rights as British citizens. New waves of migration, initially Afro-Caribbean but followed by South Asian, led to political anger over the issue of immigration and a tightening of the immigration laws by the 1970s.

Having substantially restricted immigration, the subject once again receded from public interest. Then in 1997, New Labour inaugurated a period of mass immigration which resulted in levels of net immigration never again dipping below 100,000 a year (except during COVID).

Many of those migrants have subsequently been granted citizenship. Although the case of Alaa Abd El Fattah is exceptional, it is also indicative of the lack of care taken when it comes to British citizenship. Despite only having a tenuous link to the UK, the Egyptian dissident was granted British citizenship. The discovery of years of anti-British and anti-white postings on social media didn’t affect that. Having already made him a citizen, the government argued that revocation of that citizenship should require a high bar, such as fraud or being a national security threat. Easy to grant, hard to revoke.

At the same time, the post-war compromises meant that privileges reserved for citizens in many countries are available to foreign nationals here. They can be part of a jury, vote in British elections, and even win political office in some parts of the UK.

In a democracy, voting is the exercise of political power. It may have been an acceptable privilege to grant voting rights to the few Commonwealth citizens here in the immediate post-war period, but it is clearly incompatible with having a population of 6 million foreign nationals, a substantial portion of whom are Commonwealth citizens.

News that the government may introduce mandatory electoral registration and compulsory voting should therefore be a concern. Currently, resident Irish and Commonwealth citizens are all eligible to vote and therefore would, along with British citizens, face fines for failing to vote if voting were made compulsory. That could mean that a future general election victory might be decided by the votes of foreign nationals forced into the polling booth by the British government.

There is therefore an urgent need to reform the way that citizenship works in Britain. First, there should be no automatic assumption that coming to Britain for work or asylum means eventual citizenship.

Secondly, the barriers to citizenship should be raised, to ensure that it is granted to those who truly earned it and wish to become fully British. Thirdly, the privileges granted to some foreign nationals should be revoked and political power placed only in the hands of British citizens.

Immigration, War, and Decline

“Losing control of your borders,” he says, “isn’t just a crisis—it’s a peaceful invasion.” It’s a statement that echoes his tenure as Australia’s Prime Minister, when he cracked down on illegal boat crossings with a bluntness that won him both furious criticism and devoted supporters. Now, years later, he watches Britain’s small boat crisis with a sense of déjà vu. The same mistakes, he argues, are playing out in Europe.

However, Abbott’s concerns extend beyond border security to the institutions that shape society itself. He points to Oxford and Cambridge—once the pinnacle of Western academia—as examples of an intellectual culture eroding under what he calls “academic socialism.” It’s a shift he believes is weakening Britain, much like the cultural drift he has observed in other Western democracies.

As conflict between China and the United States looms on the Pacific horizon, Abbott argues that peace can only be preserved through strength—but is the West strong enough to prevent such a conflict? That, he suggests, is the real question.

Britain’s Future and the Lessons of the Past

Yet, Abbott remains an optimist. The West has been here before, he reminds us. Looking at Britain’s economic and political turbulence today, he sees echoes of the late 1970s—before Margaret Thatcher’s reforms pulled the country back from the brink. If Britain found resilience then, he believes it can do so again.

AUKUS, in his view, is one such step toward reclaiming strength. The alliance, which binds Britain, Australia, and the United States in a renewed Pacific strategy, is more than just a defense pact—it’s a signal that the English-speaking democracies still matter on the global stage. He sees it as an opportunity for Britain to reassert itself in a world increasingly dominated by China’s influence.

From South Korea’s demographic freefall to Britain’s shrinking workforce, Morland explains why fertility rates are plummeting worldwide and what this means for national survival. He lays out the stark reality—either nations boost birth rates, import millions of migrants, or face economic and social decline. But is there a way to reverse this trend before it’s too late?

Governments once fought to slow populatio…

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With modern disillusionment in governance and growing support for authoritarian rule, Starkey warns against romanticizing revolutions and highlights how Britain’s organic, evolutionary system has kept the nation stable for centuries. He also examines lessons from history—including the American and French Revolutions, the Glorious Revolution …

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James sits down with Tom Tugendhat MP, a former Security Minister and seasoned expert in global politics, to discuss the seismic shifts shaping 2025, from Donald Trump’s second inauguration to the escalating geopolitical tensions in Europe and Asia. Tugendhat and James explore the implications of America’s evolving foreign policy, the weakening of Iranian influence, the rise of China, and how these developments are forming a new security paradigm.

Featuring:

• Donald Trump's Return: What his presidency means for global stability and U.S. foreign policy.

• The End of the Global War on Terror: Are we entering a new Cold War?

• Iran's Waning Influence: How Soleimani’s death and recent events have altered the balance of power in the Middle East.

• China's Expansionism: Taiwan, the Arctic, and the implications of China's growing military capabilities.

• Africa's Growing Potential: A surprising look at the continent’s emerging tech scene and geopolitical importance.

About Our Guest

Tom Tugendhat MP
Tom Tugendhat is a Member of Parliament for Tonbridge and Malling and one of the UK's leading voices on international relations and security. A former Security Minister, Tom served as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and has extensive experience in military and political strategy, including active duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. Known for his sharp analysis and deep understanding of global dynamics, Tugendhat continues to play a pivotal role in shaping Britain’s foreign policy.

“This is fundamentally a new imperial age with two empires: the United States and China.” – Tom Tugendhat

“2025 might be the year we truly see the return of two superpowers dominating the world stage.” – James

Predictions to Watch in 2025

1. A potential peace deal in Ukraine brokered through The Art of The Deal

2. Africa’s emergence as a tech powerhouse.

3. A renewed Cold War between America and China.

4. Rising European political shifts driven by migration and economic pressures.

Did you enjoy this episode? Don’t forget to subscribe, and comment! Share your thoughts below, on Notes and on X, tagging @OutpostStudios, and let us know your predictions for 2025.

We also explore the rising influence of regional powers, the psychological toll of intelligence work, and the mysterious phenomenon known as "Havana Syndrome"—an illness afflicting Western intelligence officers stationed in hostile regions. In an engaging discussion, Raymond contrasts Hollywood's portrayal of spies with the gritty reality of fieldwork, and why, in real life, it often all comes down to food.

Ray and Michael discuss:

• How Raymond began his career in the CIA and the …

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