Under the Labour governments of 1997–2010, Britain’s economic immigration policy was transformed from a system underpinned by restriction to a comparatively expansive regime. Based on over 50 elite interviews, the article sets out to explain why economic immigration policy shifted so radically, by examining how the organised public and political elites influenced policy and policy change. The article tests Gary Freeman’s client politics model and challenges the claim that sections of the organised public drove the expansionary reforms. In contrast, it is argued that the logic and idea behind the policy reforms were fundamentally underpinned by the Labour Party’s Third Way framework, in particular the Party’s business-friendly approach and its fixation with globalisation. The article demonstrates that immigration policy-making in Britain is an elite-driven pursuit, and that parties, and the ideas which configure them, shape immigration policy.