MIGRATION REVOLUTION
Home Secretary unveils post-Brexit work visa scheme ++ No priority for EU workers ++ Firms should try to hire UK staff first ++ New arrivals must respect British values
FAR fewer low-skilled workers will be allowed in from Europe after Brexit, Sajid Javid and Theresa May pledged 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 said, speaking exclusively to 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. Mr Javid’s pledge
came as he burnished his Brexit credentials by saying a Canada-style trade deal was a good option and:
Left the door open to ditching the Tory target of cutting net migration to the ‘tens of thousands’;
Pledged a crackdown on middle-class drug users whose habits finance organised crime;
Boris Johnson meanwhile prepared to give an alternative leader’s speech today at the Tory Party conference;
Dominic Raab appeared to suggest Britain could slash corporation tax to 10 per cent to keep firms in the UK in the event of a no-deal exit;
Jeremy Hunt faced a backlash from EU leaders after likening the Brussels club to a Soviet prison.
The immigration system unveiled today will be put 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 from the rest of the world.
Tourists would remain free to travel to the UK, and business travellers on short trips are expected to face a light-touch regime. 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’. He questioned the benefit of large-scale unskilled immigration, saying: ‘It must have some kind of negative impact on wages growth in the UK.’
But the Home Secretary insisted Britain would remain ‘a positive, outwardlooking nation open to the best talent from across the world’.
He added: ‘The immigration system should be very focused on high- skilled people that we might need and dramatically curb low-skilled people coming to our country. And at the same time look across the world.
‘If we are talking about a software engineer or a surgeon, to me it doesn’t matter about the nationality of that individual, it’s not really important. We want the talent and skill that they are going to bring so it shouldn’t matter if that highskilled person is coming from India, Australia or France.
‘What matters is the skill that they are going to bring to the UK.’
He said the target to slash net immigration to the ‘tens of thousands’ might not last beyond the next election.
Mr Javid, a Eurosceptic who backed Remain, also waded into the debate over Brexit, hinting that he could switch to backing a Canada-style trade deal if the EU rejected Mrs May’s Chequers plan at this month’s Brussels summit. He batted away questions about his own leadership ambitions but, in a significant move, he defended Mr Johnson, who has come under fire for his outspoken attacks on Chequers.
Mr Javid said the former foreign secretary was ‘a massive asset in campaigning’.
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.
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 here – thus robbing us of an essential part of being an independent nation.
No longer will we be forced to accept all comers from the EU, 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 labour that can drive down wages and put pressure on housing, school places, hospital beds and other services.
Indeed, for many who backed Brexit, 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.