On Monday, the Prime Minister announced a new plan to reduce migration. The plan claims to be a “clean break with the past”, but offers nothing but more of the same tired, anti-migrant rhetoric that will do nothing but harm our communities and our economy.
Louise Calvey, director of Asylum Matters, said:
“Keir Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ doesn’t sound anything like the country I recognise. For most people in the UK, migrants are our family members, our friends, our neighbours, our colleagues. Our history is built on migration and our economy needs it now more than ever: our NHS, our care system, our agricultural economy all crumble without the skills people migrating bring.
“The Government wants to slash all of this without actually explaining why or their strategy for replacing the highly skilled people we need. Barring skilled people with so much to offer from coming into the country to work, study or be with their families won’t fill empty jobs or do anything to help people who live here into work – all it will do is damage the economy to the detriment of all of us. That’s not common sense – it’s an ideological project for which taxpayers, communities, businesses and those of us who need care, now or in the future, will have to foot the bill for.”
