One solid rule in politics is never to waste a good crisis. And yet that is precisely what Labour is doing.
Two weeks ago, Donald Trump signed an executive order charging applicants for the US’s skilled foreign worker visa $100,000 (£74,000).
For America, it is a disaster. It is actively discouraging the world’s smartest and most ambitious people from travelling there and contributing to their economy. But for everyone else, it is an opportunity. Now there is a great big pool of global talent we can attract to our shores.
Needless to say, Britain has decided to completely forego this opportunity. Even as we sink deeper into economic stagnation, we have decided to close off a glistening avenue of potential prosperity. Why? Because Nigel Farage doesn’t like it. His stranglehold over the British economy is as firm as ever.
On his trip to India this week, Keir Starmer has been desperate to assure everyone that there will be no increased Indian migration. He seems incredibly proud of the fact that a recent trade deal with the country did not have a significant visa component. Visas “played no part”, he said. “The issue is not about visas,” he added. “It’s about business to business engagement and investment and jobs and prosperity coming into the United Kingdom.”
More’s the pity. Without an immigration component, the trade deal struck with India last July was an uninspiring little thing. Cars and whisky became cheaper to export to India and textiles and jewellery cheaper to export to the UK. All to the good, but extremely modest. It’s expected to add 0.13 per cent to UK GDP by 2040. This is not the kind of stuff that Rachel Reeves’s financial black holes will be filled in with.
The Prime Minister’s view of trade is archaic. You cannot harness the full power of free trade by restricting it simply to goods. This is not the Victorian era. We need trade in services and in people, in the workers who travel to new countries – sometimes just for a year or two, sometimes for ever. They bring with them contacts and techniques and know-how. They raise productivity. They stimulate a stagnant economy. They pay the tax that maintains an ageing population.
Even if we’re not taking in foreign workers, Britain would benefit from foreign students. We boast some of the greatest higher education institutions in the world and a global reputation for excellence. High foreign student fees fund universities, which then educate British students for lower payments, raising their future salaries and tax contribution. Foreign students are also disproportionately likely to be successful themselves after university, and often choose their host country as a good place to start a business. Everyone wins.
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Perhaps this was why Starmer brought 14 university vice-chancellors and university representatives with him on the India trip. But even here, he has decided to choke off any possibility of economic growth.
He insisted that he did not want to attract Indian students to the UK, but instead to get British universities to set up outposts overseas. It is an extraordinary sight: a Prime Minister who refuses to create jobs and secure exports in a highly productive part of the British economy, and instead chooses to outsource the operation.
Back home, organisations are bracing themselves for the deleterious impact of the anti-immigration policies the Government has already announced.
The Home Secretary has said she will expand the time someone would need to stay in the UK before they are granted indefinite leave to remain from five years to 10. Earlier this week, the Royal College of Nursing warned that the proposals would drive foreign NHS workers away and risk health care provision. Such foreign workers currently constitute around a fifth of the staff in NHS England – with similarly high proportions in prisons and social care.
Every single one of these areas is currently suffering from massive strain. In each of them, the Government has now committed to making it harder for them to function, with severe knock-on economic effects. When the NHS delays operations, for instance, people stay out of work longer, pay less tax and claim more benefits. It is a cycle of economic self-harm.
Other countries recognise the link between immigration and economic success. Canada has dedicated itself to providing both a welcome environment and a series of enticements to global talent. It has duly grown its economy at far more impressive rates than Britain. In Spain, the government is using new arrivals to help fill jobs and pay taxes. Last year the Economist ranked it the best-performing rich-world economy of 2024 across a range of measures, including GDP growth, inflation and unemployment.
Once upon a time Starmer assured us that nothing mattered more than growth. He was right. Growth is the key. It improves people’s quality of life. It prevents them looking to populists to give the system a kicking. It allows us to distribute resources to those who need them without having to take them away from others. It makes politics win-win rather than zero-sum. It would get Labour re-elected.
And yet Starmer has not prioritised growth, not really. He has done what British governments have been doing for over a decade: prioritising anti-immigration policy and focusing on growth only where it does not interfere with it.
Anti-immigrant hysteria has driven America into the abyss. It is now actively discouraging the next generation of skilled workers, doctors, entrepreneurs and inventors from moving to its shores.
We have a golden opportunity to attract that talent here and help kick-start the British economy. It’s an opportunity we seem intent on ignoring.
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