Will the new government commit to migrants’ rights

By Ruth Grove-White

(MRN) – It’s over at last. After a surreal week of wheeling and dealing between the three major parties – none of which had secured an overall majority in the general election last Thursday – the new Lib Dem / Conservative government is now settling around the cabinet table in Number 10.

Over the past few days I’ve had my fingers crossed that, as part of negotiations with Labour and the Tories, the Lib Dems would manage to bring some of their pragmatic proposals on immigration (developing a regional economic migration policy, holding an amnesty, and an end to child detention in particular) to the table… whichever table they ended up at, that is.

The Lib Dem / Conservative coalition agreement, released yesterday and detailing the coalition’s key policy plans for the coming five years, shows that this may have been optimistic. Many of the most interesting Lib Dem immigration and asylum proposals seem to have been shelved – for now? – in the interests of forming the coalition government.

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