I don’t think there is any appetite to change the system, on either side of the House. They will both moan that the figures are too high but won’t commit to a target because they are beholden to the employers.
The Universities are cash cows and taking only as many U.K. students as they are required and instead filling their coffers with foreign students, who pay more and get to remain and work. The U.K. Government talks about a high-skilled economy, yet paradoxically wants to reduce the number of U.K. citizens attending university. Similarly, the number of occupations on the exempted list continues to lengthen, with ‘social care’, health, hospitality, agriculture, and construction all screaming louder and louder for more and more (cheap) labour.
It all sounds remarkably similar to what happened before. London will boom on cheap labour, claim itself to be a bastion of internationalisation and need more, and the country will then gorge on the economic benefits (probably under a Labour government). However, as more and more migrants come and they filter out of the metropolises and into the suburbs and then the provinces, the underlying structural problems and tensions will resurface. Not sure you can have a referendum to leave the world…
news.sky.com
