But “immigration is good” versus “immigration is bad” is a stale debate that has never served the country well. Sunak would do better to look at what is actually going on in the real economy.
On the higher-paid side, the policy has been pretty smooth so far. Plenty of people have come on skilled worker and healthcare visas — indeed, experts think it is possible that overall net migration is now running at higher levels than before the pandemic . But there is a certain arrogance to the notion the UK government can just order up more skilled workers from abroad whenever it wants. With the pound so weak and the economy probably heading into recession, that isn’t a given. Other countries are seeking to attract skilled migrants too as they try to recover from the pandemic.
The question of whether Britain should become more open to low-paid migrant workers is trickier. It’s clear that a number of sectors that had relied on EU workers under freedom of movement are now struggling with labour shortages, from hospitality to food and drink manufacturing. Brexit wasn’t the only cause of the shortage, but for many years migration from the EU helped employers to limp on with an employment model based on relatively low pay for antisocial hours and a lot of responsibility.
Chris Forde, an academic who has been studying employer responses to Brexit, says there is also little sign yet of companies investing in automation as an alternative: “Employers we’ve spoken to have spoken about the quite profound challenges associated with automation — yes some processes can be automated...[but] they’re really expensive and they’re long-term investments.”