Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has proposed what I have long advocated for – time-specific work permits for migrants, at least in the care sector.
The Singapore-style move would help fulfil the needs of the labour market while also helping avoid much of the damage to national cohesion which Britain’s mass immigration without integration experiment has unleashed.
Perhaps this is a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Still, it might also be a case of better late than never.
Farage argued that care home workers were “necessary” rather than skilled and should not stay in the UK indefinitely.
Predictably the pile-on began from Labour and Lib Dem MPs but the opinion polls clearly show the public will be on the Reform chief’s side.
Referring to the UK skills shortage, Farage said: “If we really can’t recruit people in Britain to work in care – and I believe we could with some tweaks to the tax system – recruit them on a time-specific contract with no entitlement to health care or social benefits.”
He added: “We give people who come in indefinite leave to remain and once they have got that they can then bring in their mum, their dad, their aunty, their uncle, theirs. That’s what’s gone wrong.”
Whether such workers are skilled or necessary is perhaps secondary to why Britain’s collect-twelve-crisp-packets-and-get-a-passport policy has been allowed to continue.
Singapore, as an example, would never in a gazillion years grant citizenship simply because someone worked there for a period of time.
At best, one might be granted ‘permanent residency’ or PR, and even that considers multiple criteria such as nationality and ability to integrate – the kind of factors UK human rights legislation would never allow to be considered.
Frankly, work permits are the solution to Britain’s immigration question, simultaneously satisfying the needs of the economy while guarding against the ongoing breakdown in national cohesion, as I witnessed firsthand in my hometown of Luton.
Permanent residency and citizenship need to be earned and factor in more than time served and employment. If Singapore and other Asian countries can account for the wider social ramifications of immigration, then why can’t Western countries like the UK?
Reform UK is starting to reveal big bold policies as the insurgent party rides high in the polls. Energy is one area where Reform laid out its plans. Now the party has the chance to set out its stall in other areas as well.
The UK has demonstrably been failed by a two-party duopoly, two cheeks of the same backside which keep Britain in an equilibrium of mediocrity. Farage and Reform are getting bolder, while the British people are increasingly receptive to what he and the party are saying.
