After Brexit, restriction of unskilled EU migration was to be expected
SIR – How strange that a leaked government document indicating that the Government is planning to restrict immigration of non-skilled EU migrants after Brexit has been dressed up in some quarters as news.
Unless I am very much mistaken, this story could only have been classed as news had the leaked document indicated that there were to be no restriction of non-skilled EU migrants after Brexit. Ian Johnson
Chelford, Cheshire
SIR – Sitting here enjoying my breakfast bowl of beautiful, fresh English strawberries, I wonder whether the extremely hard-working, mainly European, seasonal fruit pickers upon whom we all rely, will be classified as “low-skilled” and consequently be refused entrance to the United Kingdom. Henrietta Cooke
Evesham, Worcestershire SIR – Proposed migration controls seem familiar. Before we joined the EU I worked in low-paid short-term jobs in Austria and Spain and for a wellpaid three years in France – all with minimal paperwork, which would now be handled online.
And I was fingerprinted to work in the United States. Duncan Ogilvie
Bristol
SIR – Fraser Nelson (Comment, August 25) makes a good point on immigrant workers and industry. There is no reason why British workers cannot be trained to the same level of skills that immigrants offer.
Training takes time and money, plus an understanding boss. In my own experience in industry, money as an incentive was found to be secondary to a sense of being appreciated and being well treated. Robin Whitefield
Stocking Pelham, Hertfordshire
SIR – Juliet Samuel is right to point out the danger of unbridled migration (Comment, September 4), but wrong to highlight the statistic that British classrooms now comprise 21 per cent non-native English speaking pupils.
Many classes across the country have no such children, while many are entirely composed of non-native speakers. The situation points to de facto ghettoes in our cities, rather than an even spread, which would favour greater assimilation. Peter Power
Lyndhurst, Hampshire
SIR – Juliet Samuel is right to stress the essential continuity in British populations until the 1990s. Indeed she understates it.
The survey that Stephen Oppenheimer published in 2007 showed a 90 per cent continuity in genetic terms going back to Neolithic times, 8,500 years ago.
The changes over the last 20 years, however positive, are truly unprecedented. David Paul
Whitland, Carmarthenshire