Javid plans post-Brexit visa scheme for migrants
‘Live by our values’
FAR fewer low-skilled workers will be allowed in from Europe after Brexit, Sajid Javid and Theresa May vowed last night.
Unveiling the biggest immigration reform for decades, the Home Secretary vowed to end EU free movement completely.
He said the system would now focus on skilled workers and Europeans would be treated the same as citizens from anywhere else. Mr Javid also warned that migrants would have to integrate.
‘If you want to come to our country and contribute, great,’ he exclusively told the Daily Mail. ‘But in exchange, we expect you to live by our British values and respect our values.’
Mrs May, who has made ending free movement a ‘red line’ in her negotiations with Brussels, last night said the proposals would deliver on the referendum vow to take back control of the UK’s borders.
‘For the first time in decades, it will be this country that controls and chooses who we want to come here,’ she said.
The EU has warned it would respond to the UK ending free movement by stripping Britons of the automatic right to work and live anywhere in the bloc.
The immigration system unveiled today will be in place from January 2021, after the UK’s transition out of the EU is complete. European migrants will have to apply for work visas in the same way as those in the rest of the world.
Tourists would remain free to travel to the UK. The three million EU citizens already living in the UK will have full rights to stay.
Ministers will now work with business to establish the level of immigration needed by the economy. But visa applicants will be required to meet minimum salary thresholds before taking a job.
There will be ‘temporary’ exemptions for areas of the economy dependent on low-skilled migrants but businesses will be told to train up British workers.
Mr Javid said his reforms would result in unskilled immigration from Europe becoming ‘much lower than it is today’.
But the Home Secretary insisted Britain would remain ‘a positive, outward-looking nation open to the best talent from across the world’. Mr Javid added: ‘The immigration system should be very focused on high-skilled people we might need and dramatically curb low-skilled people coming to our country.’
He said the target to slash net immigration to the ‘tens of thousands’ might not last beyond the next election.
Mr Javid also waded into the Brexit debate, hinting he could back a Canada-style deal if the EU rejected Mrs May’s Chequers plan at this month’s Brussels summit.
MILLIONS who backed Brexit, and many others besides, will have reason to cheer today after Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s unequivocal assurance that whatever happens in the negotiations with Brussels, the UK will take back control of its borders. No ifs, no buts.
This won’t mean an end to immigration. Indeed, given the huge contribution migrants can make, nobody with this country’s interests at heart would want that.
What it will mean is an end to the iniquity of Europe’s free movement rules, under which Brussels decides who has the right to live in Britain.
Thus, we will no longer be forced to accept all comers from the EU, whether we need them or not, while having to turn away highly qualified professionals from the rest of the world.
Yes, there will still be a welcome for, say, Bulgarian fruit-pickers or Romanian catering workers – but only as and when we need them.
Otherwise, priority will be given to British workers, with no more obligation to accept cheap labourers likely to drive down wages and put pressure on public services.
Indeed, for many Brexit voters, the yearning to regain control of our borders was high on their list of reasons for voting Leave. Mr Javid’s assurance means that – Tory rebels and an opportunist Labour Party permitting – the Government won’t let them down.