Tories to Abandon 'Tens of Thousands' General Election Pledge?
Published Jul 27, 2017
Today
Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary said that the Home Office will task
the Migration
Advisory Committee to consider whether employing EU nationals leads to
under-investment in certain areas of the economy, as well as the benefits and
social costs of people from abroad moving to the UK. They will be asked
to look specifically at how EU migrants affect different sectors of the UK
economy amid suggestions new rules could be made for different
industries.
John
Bickley, UKIP's Immigration Spokesman said, "Amber Rudd's statement is a coded
message that the Tories have no intention of seriously curbing immigration from
the EU after we leave. The
Tories have consistently failed to meet their 'tens of thousands' immigration
target for the last seven years, promised by two prime ministers no
less. Immigration
from outside the EU is much higher and under the direct control of the
government, however it is still in the hundreds of thousands, not the 'tens'.
Why do the Tories continue to promise they will cut immigration and continue to
fail to deliver it; are they incompetent or misleading the British people, or
both?
In
2015 the Bank of England produced a detailed report on the impact of immigration
on wages that concluded uncontrolled immigration has a material impact on wages
for the semi and unskilled job sector. Surely the Home Secretary and Tory
Government are aware of the report? If so, why are they commissioning a new
report? Do they want some fudged or loaded 'research' that gives them an excuse
to keep our borders open after Brexit and to cave into pressure from the EU to
continue 'free movement' in all but name.
The
Tory government may also want to question whether a significant number of the
1.9 million British people in higher education would be better off moving into
the workplace rather than staying out of the workplace for 2-5 years and
incurring £50,000+ of taxpayer funded debt that they may never be able to pay
back. Surely, employers would welcome the availability of hundreds of thousands
of well educated 16-18 year olds ready to be trained and to work (as used to
happen before we joined the EU), or do the Tories want to make it easy for big
business (which donates millions to the Tory party) to import cheap labour from
abroad, thereby avoiding training and employing British people?"
John
Bickley