Do we want Brexit to mean fewer immigrants — or more of them?

Of all the questions posed by Brexit, migration is perhaps the one that has greatest potential to blow up into a political crisis. So the Prime Minister’s decision to omit a proposed £30,000

salary threshold from his points system is highly significant. It means that he has listened to business, which has been lobbying for this rule to be dropped. But it also means that he is

gambling with the possibility that his new Australian-style system will actually result in higher, not lower, immigration.

One of the main planks of the Leave campaign was that the EU principle of free movement had resulted in Britain being overwhelmed with low-skilled migrants from the Balkans who were happy to

work for low wages. “Take back control” was intended to be a general slogan about restoring national sovereignty, but its most obvious interpretation was taking back control of our borders.

Migratory pressure on earnings and on public services, as well as concerns about crime and terrorism, fed into the referendum result.

Britons have a more positive view of immigrants than most other Europeans, but they have a reasonable expectation that the Government will stop the flow becoming a flood. The new system,

details of which will emerge in a White Paper due to be published in March, will abolish discrimination in favour of EU nationals and in future treat all migrants on an equal basis. While

this change is obviously right in theory and should be popular with existing minority communities, many of whom want to bring family members to the UK, in practice is could lead to a large

rise in applicants from other continents. Indeed, as Brexit draws closer the immigration figures have already shown a reduction in Europeans coming to work here and a corresponding increase

in those from elsewhere.

From an economic perspective, having the largest possible pool of talent from which to recruit must be one of the benefits of Brexit. But employers cannot afford to pay even highly skilled,

mainly younger workers — lab assistants or nurses, for example — more than the market rate, which is usually below £30,000. And a rapidly ageing population is already creating an almost

unlimited demand for carers, few of whom will be paid at this level. It is in the national interest to fill these gaps in the labour market with qualified immigrants, which is why Boris

Johnson has broken with Theresa May’s rigid legacy.

It cannot be repeated too often, however, that Australia’s points system was devised for a vast country that has always needed large-scale immigration. The UK is in a very different

predicament: the economy is accustomed to a steady surplus of immigration over emigration, but productivity has lagged behind our competitors in part because of the availability of cheap

labour. Welfare, health, housing and education in Britain have all been comparatively open to immigrants, but public spending on these public services has failed to alleviate overcrowded

systems that cannot keep pace with the equivalent of an additional large city every year.

Britain has an extraordinary ability to create jobs. Since 2010, some three million more people are in full-time work here; 85 per cent of all these new jobs are full-time, compared to 54

per cent between 1997 and 2010. And the pace of job creation is quickening, with employment up by 208,000 since November and unemployment at just 3.8 per cent, the lowest level since 1975.

No other country in Europe can boast such a record.

Immigration remains an allergic issue, however. It raises acute cultural as well as economic issues. The big dividing lines in politics are now about identity, not class. Boris Johnson is

instinctively liberal on both migration and identity, as befits a man of Christian, Jewish and Muslim heritage who was born in New York and raised in Brussels. 

But the Prime Minister is also conscious that the new immigration system, which will kick in immediately after Brexit takes full effect at the end of the year, must take account of the whole

nation, not just London and the south-east. He has promised that the system will be rigorous — as indeed it must be if people are to have confidence in it. Salaries are only one factor:

education and occupation, proficiency in English and flexibility about location are equally important. This new regime must work for everybody. Otherwise getting Brexit done won’t mean

taking back control. Boris Johnson had better get this right.

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