There seem to be two Rishi Sunaks around at present.
One of them appeared last week, at the Government’s Global Investment Summit at Hampton Court Palace. The UK had “the most competitive visa regime,” Sunak boasted to investors, and “nothing like it exists anywhere else in the world”.
If you’re a student from a good university, “you can just come here with your family… to just explore” a gleaming Sunak said, eager to point out just how many of the top British businesses had immigrant founders.
Then, once overseas investors were on their private jets home, another Sunak re-emerged. There are too many foreigners, he moaned. We need to keep ’em out.
Employers must stop “over-relying on migration”. If you want to come here, don’t expect an easy ride. You’ll have to earn about 50% more than you used to so you’re “not burdening the state”, and you can kiss goodbye to your families — there’s no way we’re letting them anywhere near Blighty.
Readers will notice there is a slight tension between these two views.
The Government would say it is just a distinction between low and high-skilled workers, but the real dichotomy is between the Sunak who cares about the economy and the Sunak who is terrified of electoral oblivion.
Sunak knows, Jeremy Hunt knows, the entire Treasury knows, that migration has been a huge boon to Britain.
It has saved our creaking public services from collapse, and it is no coincidence that London, Britain’s economic powerhouse, has the country’s highest share of foreign-born students and workers.
But thousands of them woke up yesterday morning terrified they would lose their jobs or get split from their partners, because they no longer qualify to stay.
And even if they’re allowed to stay, the best and brightest may wonder if it is worth moving somewhere their talents are more welcome.
The Government has every right to cut immigration. But it must come clean about the trade-offs — higher taxes and depleted public services — that will follow.
