End cap on migrants says IEA think-tank

MINISTERS HAVE been urged to scrap the migration target and abolish a cap on work visas for highly skilled migrants as a report warned the UK’s immigration policy is “economically damaging”.

The free market Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank said it was wrong to focus on overall numbers, as the public are concerned about types of immigration rather than volumes.

And it called for “working limits” on foreign student visas to be dropped, saying the current policy discriminates against students from less wealthy backgrounds.

The IEA proposed a “two lane” visa system in which free movement with some countries is maintained, while an uncapped version of the current system is introduced for the rest of the world after Brexit.

It found that many types of immigration are “widely accepted or even popular” among “leftwingers and economic liberals” and “small-c conservatives and ‘nativists’”.

“But mentioning the word ‘immigration’ immediately triggers a culture war, where one side sees bigots and racists everywhere, while the other side feels sneered at by an arrogant metropolitan elite,” the report added.

Report author Dr Kristian Niemietz, head of political economy at the IEA, said the current immigration policy represents the “worst of all worlds” in some ways. He said it was “possible to liberalise immigration rules substantially in some respects”.