Shabana Mahmood faces pressure from Labour frontbenchers to water down 'Boriswave' migrant crackdown

Shabana Mahmood has come under pressure from frontbench Labour colleagues to save her migration reforms.

The Home Secretary is being urged to water down plans that would make it harder for foreign workers to claim permanent residence, or risk an internal Labour war.

Under current plans, Prime Minister Andy Burnham is considering exempting care workers from plans to triple the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five to 15 years.

But several frontbenchers, including Housing Secretary Angela Rayner and Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh, have already publicly criticised the policy.

Ms Rayner has previously branded the rule changes "un-British" and "disruptive" for moving the goalposts on essential care staff who moved to the UK to care for vulnerable citizens.

The Energy Secretary similarly warned that continually delaying permanent settlement risks harming local integration and "the process of building cohesion".

The Home Office has argued the move could result in a mass exodus of foreign care workers from their jobs.

A senior ally of Ms Mahmood told The Times, which first reported on the infighting, that Mr Burnham is in the Home Secretary's camp.

The ally said: "Andy has been on Shabana's side throughout this row over ILR. He is holding the line."

The Energy Secretary, in a post on her constituency website last week, said extending the time foreign migrants had to wait before being granted ILR threatened "the process of building cohesion".

Ms Mahmood's plans are set to be introduced to Parliament as soon as next month, with 100 Labour MPs said to be opposing the plans.

Earlier this year, as many as 80 MPs wrote to the Prime Minister, asking him to "water down" the Home Secretary's reforms.

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They urged Mr Burnham to "strip out the hostile rhetoric which triggers existing anxieties" on asylum seekers and refugees.

The letter said: "Targeting a group of migrants that followed the rules, and applying this retrospectively, does not pass the fairness test for a compassionate but firm system.

"We do not recall being asked on the doorstep to make it harder for migrant workers to settle in the UK.

"Yet we are expending political capital, huge Home Office resources, and losing progressive voters on an indefinite leave to remain reform, which few really understand or want."

Speaking about the policy earlier this year, Ms Mahmood acknowledged that "not everyone will agree" with her reforms.

She told LBC: "As I was making my statement in the House today, it was clear that a majority of my colleagues were supportive of the proposals and understand the need for these changes.

"Look, I think politics is about making an argument, and that is what I was doing in the House today as I introduced these reforms in Parliament.

"Not everyone will agree. I accept that."