The Editor
The Times.
11 September 2019
Sir,
The new government policy to remove controls on student migration is short-sighted and will be damaging. Evidently it does not even concentrate on the ‘brightest and best’. Instead it opens the gates to the same free- for -all as before, irrespective of subject or academic merit. Of course it will please universities in their clamour for fees. Of course it will please employers who will get an army of shelf-stackers as well as others who really might promote the economy. The last thing that the UK needs when facing a competitive world is yet more unlimited and initially unskilled labour, which led to so much abuse in previous years. Business must concentrate on improving its dismal productivity, not maximising a labour force for which the rest of the country will have to find housing and all the rest.
The public should not be misled by mendacious claims that all students go home. While at the moment most seem to return as their visas require, about one in four remain in the UK through visas for work, further study, marriage and asylum. Although a desire to limit migration was the single most important of the many factors behind the Brexit vote, the paradox is that no senior government figure has any interest in limiting migration and neither do any of the other main parties. One likely consequence of the whole misguided post-referendum policy to dismantle immigration controls is that the Brexit Party will deprive the Tories of a majority in an election while gaining few seats themselves. There would then be no party in power willing to respond to the public desire to reduce immigration, a desire which remains strong.

Yours faithfully,
David Coleman