What are Reform UK’s policies for settlement and Indefinite Leave to Remain?

29 October 2025

Reform intend to take a hardline approach to immigration if they gain control of Parliament in the next election, starting with abolishing indefinite leave to remain (ILR), also known as settlement:

“Indefinite leave to remain will be abolished. No new awards granted and existing ones rescinded, thus ending one of the greatest drains on the public purse.”

The result would be immigrants potentially having to renew their immigration status indefinitely, in five-year intervals. Reform also plan to restrict access to public funds so only British citizens would qualify in the future.

If the intention is really to deprive exiting ILR holders of this status, this would have to be done by way of an Act of Parliament, as the nature of this status is governed by the Immigration Act 1971. Those who previously held ILR would have to lodge a fresh application, for five years of limited leave, subject to the following criteria:

• Significantly higher salary thresholds
• The applicant cannot have previously accessed public funds, including those they were eligible for at the time
• More stringent rules about criminality and tax compliance
• Significantly higher standard of English
• Not having spent more than 90 days in any given year outside the UK

However, the plan also includes references to the qualifying period for naturalisation being extended to seven years which, under our current legislation, would be impossible to qualify for at all if ILR is abolished, and so would require an amendment to the British Nationality Act 1981 to remove the requirement to be free of immigration restrictions when applying.

Conclusion

Reform’s proposals are significantly more extreme and punitive than those of any major party in living history. The proposals lack detail and a number of different important considerations have been overlooked, including compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998.

If implemented in their current form, which seems unlikely, they would do great harm not just to the immigrants that they target but also the wider British society and the economy, in part because this would likely disincentivise many immigrants from moving here in the future, including the highly skilled migrants that Reform claim they wish to attract.