5. Bringing the unions into immigration
Brexit is unique: the impulses behind it are not. Immigration has become a neuralgic debate for progressives across Europe, one framed in once-liberal Sweden by the rise of the hard-right Sweden Democrats.
Some plans of Social Democratic Party migration minister Anders Ygeman, such as noisily ramping up deportations of foreign criminals, will strike British liberals as depressingly familiar. But there is one interesting twist buried in his proposal for the return of the “labour market test” for work permits, something the centre-right government under Fredrik Reinfeldt abolished after 2008.
All EU states have the option of testing whether economic conditions warrant importing non-EU labour, for example by informing job centres about a post or advertising it to test local interest. But in keeping with the state’s pre-EU traditions, Sweden used to make an assessment of national shortages jointly with the unions. Ygeman is starting an inquiry that could take the country back to this.
In Britain, the unions have never enjoyed this influence. Such a test could be especially important post-Brexit because the UK has discretion over EU as well as non-EU visas. Technocrats would be horrified at handing “producer interest” extra sway. But employers already choose