THE government’s promise to ‘take back control’ of Britain’s borders after Brexit is being broken. Despite tough talk from the Home Secretary that the government’s Immigration Act is ‘landmark legislation’ which amounts to a ‘once in a generation’ chance for Britain to reclaim border sovereignty, the new Act, which received Royal Assent on Wednesday, will mean a loosening of entry rules for those coming for work from 80 per cent of the world’s countries. See our piece here.
Rules that require foreign students to find high-skilled work within four months of graduation in order to get a visa will also be changed. They will now be given two years, as well as being allowed to stay even if their job is low-skilled or if they are not working at all. For more read our piece here.
Perhaps the most damaging change will be the scrapping of the cap on work permits for the primary economic migration route into the UK. This has been in place since 2011 but now employers are being given a free hand to bring in as many foreign workers as they wish. This is a complete surrender to the demands of business. To make matters worse, the government has binned a commitment to ensure British jobseekers are given first dibs on jobs.
The only conclusion one can draw from the abandonment of a cap and the point-blank refusal to consider one is that Priti Patel, but more likely Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, are not serious about curbing immigration, despite promising to do so at the last general election.
The new immigration laws, accompanied as they are by rhetoric and bluster about getting tough on border controls, are in reality being treated as an opportunity for the proponents of mass immigration in Parliament, much of the media, and academia to force through their ultra-liberal and ‘woke’ immigration agenda.
The throwing open of our borders to an unlimited number of workers from all over the world could see the numbers spinning out of control just as unemployment accelerates.
Thirty million people in the UK want tighter controls on immigration. For more read here. The share of people who say the government is doing a bad job on immigration has soared from 44 per cent in the spring to nearly 70 per cent – see YouGov polling here.
This is perhaps not surprising since illegal Channel crossings have reached a record level of more than 8,000 this year. This is six times the number who arrived via this unauthorised route – and from safe countries – by this point last year. For more, see our Channel Tracking Station.
In the wake of Covid-19 and the government’s lockdown policies, redundancies and unemployment are shooting up. The government’s scrapping of the ‘First Chance’ rule on hiring will mean an already struggling workforce will have to face greater competition for jobs from outside Britain. For more on this, read here.
One thing is certain, as immigration surges at a time when UK residents are facing increased uncertainty about their jobs, the political ramifications for the Conservatives will be massive. They can’t say they haven’t been warned.
