Strangers Into Citizens - Endorsement By The Liberal Democrats

Endorsement By The Liberal Democrats

The campaign scored its first major success in August 2007, when following meetings with campaigners the Liberal Democrats announced it would be consider adopting the proposal at its party conference. Its immigration minister, Nick Clegg MP, argued in The Observer that "a route of earned legalisation should be made available to those who have lived here unauthorised for many years", and promised to "set stringent criteria - this is not a blanket amnesty". Among the criteria were

1. that the applicant should have lived in the UK for many years;
2. should have a clean criminal record; and
3. should show a long-term commitment to the UK.

Clegg also said the applicant would be subject to a public interest test and an English language and civics test, and would be required to pay a charge.

"Frankly this is just in recognition of the fact that, because of incompetence or mismanagement in the immigration system over many years, we have very large numbers of people who live in this twilight world of illegality and - in many cases - exploitation in the workplace which we need to deal with," Mr Clegg told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

The Government repeated its opposition to the idea, while the Conservative Party's David Davis attacked the idea as "irresponsible": "on the one hand it will encourage people to come here illegally as well as being unfair to those who have obeyed the law and tried to enter the UK legally.".

On 18 September 2007, the Liberal-Democrats adopted the idea of "an earned route to citizenship" with 10 years' residence conditions. Although the residence requirement was too strict, Strangers into Citizens campaigners said they were "delighted that a major political party has adopted a specific policy of regularisation".

At the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth on 24 September 2007, Jon Cruddas, the leading parliamentary advocate of the campaign, criticised immigration minister Liam Byrne's objections. "There's a fork in the road on this issue", he said at a fringe meeting organised by the Immigration Advisory Service and Strangers into Citizens campaign.