Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s claim that the “era of uncontrolled low skilled immigration is over” is deeply misleading, Migration Watch UK claims, which predicts public outrage after the scale of his “disastrous” immigration policies are seen.
Delivering a speech at the Conservative Party Conference in the northern English city of Manchester on Wednesday, Mr Johnson said that his “Build Back Better” agenda will put an end to “uncontrolled immigration”.
“The answer to present stresses and strains, which are mainly a function of economic growth and revival, is not to reach for that same old lever of uncontrolled migration to keep wages low.
“The answer is to control immigration, to allow people of talent to come to this country but not to use immigration as an excuse for failure to invest in people, skills, and the equipment and machinery.”
Responding to the speech, Migration Watch UK accused Mr Johnson of deceiving the public into believing that his policies will actually reduce migration. The think tank noted that while there may be a reduction in migrant workers from the European Union, Johnson’s points-based system has in fact opened the door to many more migrants throughout the world than before.
The government said that the plan was intended to be modelled off of the Australian points-based system, however, unlike Australia, the UK has failed to set a hard cap on number of immigrants allowed in per year, opening up about half of all full-time jobs to competition from foreign labour.
Analysis conducted in July by the anti-mass migration pressure group found that government’s immigration system would open the door to a pool of up to 660 million migrant workers, as a result of the failure to enact caps. In essence, it found that points-based immigration systems only actually control immigration when combined with annual limits, which will not be present in the UK model.
Johnson’s immigration plan has also lowered education requirements, as well as the salary threshold, which was dropped from £30,000 per year to £26,500 (or £20,500 for those under 26).
In a statement provided to Breitbart London, Migration Watch chairman Alp Mehmet said: “Mr Johnson is putting a bold face on potentially disastrous immigration policies. Immigration is neither under control nor reducing. Covid has helped to screw up immigration statistics but the public will be very angry when the truth comes out.”
Migration Watch said that there are already “signs of a significant increase” in the number of work permits being granted to particular countries outside of the European Union, following the UK’s official departure at the beginning of the year.
The think tank reported that the number of skilled work permit grants provided to Nigerian nationals has risen by over 400 per cent since 2018, from 1,700 to 7,500 in the year leading up to June of this year. Of those granted entry into the country last year, 4,000 were dependants.
The number of Pakistanis granted skilled work permits doubled during the same time period, from 1,700 to 3,400, with 2,000 dependants being allowed into the country last year.
The open door immigration policies over the past twenty years, eleven of which with Conservatives in power, has seen the foreign-born population balloon to nine million and the ethnic minority population to thirteen million, representing over a fifth of the UK population.
The Conservative Party had long promised to bring net migration to the country “from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands,” however, in 2019, Prime Minister Johnson dropped the pledge.
In 2017, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osbourne, admitted that the party never had any intention on reducing migration, even though they could, as the government believed that reducing immigration would damage the economy.
The failures of Johnson’s government to ‘take back control’ of migration have perhaps been best typified by its inability or unwillingness to clamp down on the illegal boat migration crisis in the English Channel.
Despite consistent promises from Home Secretary Priti Patel to “get tough” on illegal immigration, the crisis has only escalated, with over 17,000 arriving by boat this year, more than double the crossings in 2020.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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