Britain has had a ‘points-based system’ for immigration control since 2008, allocating migrants from outside the EU to one of a series of ‘tiers’ that carry different restrictions on rights. This was central to the last Labour government’s attempt to fine-tune immigration controls to the needs of British capital, alongside the use of EU migrant labour for ‘low-skilled’ roles and attacks on people seeking refuge or moving for family reunion. In February 2020 the government published a policy statement setting out the first elements of a new points-based system, to be implemented from January 2021, to include migrants from EU countries whose rights were previously determined under EU rules. The new system represents a continuation of the long-standing approach adopted by all of Britain’s major capitalist parties: to maintain the supply of labour for employers while also limiting migrants’ rights, in order to make them easier to exploit, and whipping up racism to gain public acceptance for these restrictions.
The policy document claims the new system will ‘attract the high-skilled workers we need to contribute to our economy, our communities and our public services … reduce overall levels of migration and give top priority to those with the highest skills and the greatest talents: scientists, engineers, academics and other highly-skilled workers’. To this end, the cap on numbers of skilled workers will be abolished, as will the resident labour market test that requires employers to advertise first within Britain before recruiting from abroad.
To be eligible for the new system, ‘skilled’ workers will need to already have a job offer from an approved sponsor, to be able to show that this job is sufficiently ‘skilled’, and that they speak English. A preferred minimum salary threshold will be set at £25,600, but salaries as low as £20,480 will be allowed if the job is on a list of ‘shortage occupations’, including nursing but not care work, or if the worker has a PhD in a subject relevant to the job. A separate category for ‘highly-skilled’ migrants will allow those who score enough points to come to Britain without an existing job offer. International students will be awarded points for having an offer from an approved educational institution, for speaking English, and for showing they can support themselves for the duration of their studies (including being able to afford tuition fees of £18,000 per year or more for a typical undergraduate degree). Separate routes will continue to operate for ‘innovators, ministers of religion, sportspeople and to support the arts’.
Although the policy document claims that priority will be given to ‘the skills a person has to offer, not where they come from’, the reality is likely to be very different. As with the old points-based system, the points awarded for English fluency, for job offers with higher salaries, and for expensive qualifications, will combine to benefit better-off migrants, particularly those from other imperialist countries. Tuition fees for a PhD at a typical British university cost £55,260 over three years for the social sciences or humanities, which would give you 10 points toward the 70 needed for a visa under the new system, or £71,280 for a PhD in the sciences, which would give you 20 points toward a visa. Current visa fees range from £348 to £1,878 per person per year, with a separate charge for each dependent, including children. Added to this is the Immigration Health Surcharge, a compulsory annual tax on all migrants that will be increased from October 2020, to £624 per person for workers and their dependents, and £470 for each child, student or Youth Mobility Scheme participant. Access to income-related benefits will only be available to those who secure indefinite leave to remain, which is normally only available after five years of continuous residence and requires a fee of £2,389 per person. This is truly an immigration system for the privileged. As well as continuing to exclude many working class people, it will further the ‘brain drain’ on underdeveloped countries, drawing in those who have benefited most from these countries’ investments in education and putting their skills at the service of employers in Britain. It will also disproportionately disadvantage women, who are underrepresented in the occupations privileged by the new system and four times as likely as men to leave paid work to undertake unpaid caring for children or older relatives.
Within the new system there will be no formal route for migrants who perform jobs that are defined as ‘low skilled’, a term that is often more of an ideological justification for low pay and low status than an accurate description of the skills required. The government proposes that shutting down migration to these jobs will help, ‘shift the focus of our economy away from a reliance on cheap labour from Europe and instead concentrate on investment in technology and automation’. Some roles would be very difficult to automate in this way – care work being a prime example. In some other sectors automation may be technically feasible, but will still not be implemented if employers can find an alternative source of cheap labour. Britain’s punitive and ‘workfarist’ welfare system will place pressure on many British workers, along with the 3.2 million EU citizens who have already applied for Settled Status, to accept this work no matter how low the wages, or face being sanctioned.
The government’s own policy document also points out that even though Britain does not currently have an official route for ‘lower skilled’ migration, there are estimated to be around 170,000 recently arrived migrants from outside the EU currently employed in ‘lower-skilled’ roles. It is very likely that people with all sorts of immigration statuses, including some dependents, students, refugees, and undocumented migrants, will continue to be drawn in to meet the demand for ‘low-skilled’ work. The absence of an official immigration category for this type of work will both make it less visible and reduce clarity about these workers’ rights, making them more vulnerable to exploitation. Their labour will be supplemented by a new seasonal workers’ scheme for agriculture, with an initial quota of 10,000 workers, together with a ‘youth mobility’ scheme that brings 20,000 young people to Britain each year, enabling the government to claim it has ended low-skilled migration while maintaining a supply of exploitable workers.
The new points-based immigration system is an attack on the working class. It must be resisted.
Tom Vickers
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 275, March/April 2020
