Pulling up the immigration ladder

Of course, factors like the war in Ukraine and the situation in Hong Kong mean that overall numbers are currently higher than they ought to be, and are likely to go down again in the near future. Somehow, this doesn’t seem to matter. The number is too big and so it must go down.

In order for it to go down, the government intends to become pickier in terms of who gets in. On Monday afternoon, Home Secretary James Cleverly told the House of Commons about the new rules about to be put in place.

From now on, migrants will have to earn a minimum of £38,700 a year in order to move here – up from the old threshold of £26,200. The new figure is noticeably higher than the current median average salary of a full-time British worker, which is £34,963. Similarly, anyone wanting to secure a family visa will now also have to earn £38,700pa.

Rules are also being tightened around international students, who will no longer be able to bring dependents to the UK, unless they are doing post-graduate courses that are designated as essential research.

In short: the only people deserving to move to Britain will be the ones who have already figured it all out. It’s… well, it’s certainly a valiant effort, and one which Cleverly believes will lower the figures by as much as 300,000 a year. The only problem, really, is that it fundamentally misunderstands why many people come to Britain, and why Britain has benefited so much from immigration.

Though I can’t claim to speak for everyone who jumped on a flight or a Eurostar and never looked back, I do know a lot of people who live here but were born elsewhere. What nearly every single one of us has in common is that we would meet today’s immigration requirements now, but wouldn’t have met them when we first moved.

Some of us were students and some of us were merely young people trying to figure it all out. Some of us found a career soon after university and others took their time, and got quite lost before finding themselves. All of us now pay our taxes, and are worthwhile members of society – or, at the very least, like to think that we are.

One of the great strengths of Britain, and especially London, was that it always felt like a place where things could happen, as long as you really wanted them to. Other cities were harder to crack; London was where you went if you didn’t have a lot in your pockets, and perhaps not as many contacts as you wished you did, but you were determined to make it work.

Brexit, it is fair to say, shattered part of that dream. The increasingly hellish rental market in large cities has also been making a dent. Will these latest changes be the last nail in the coffin? If so, Britain should be worried.

According to research published by The Entrepreneurs Network earlier this year, “39% of the UK’s fastest-growing startups have at least one immigrant co-founder”, down from 49% in 2019. 

As the report puts it, “Immigrants are natural entrepreneurs and innovators. The very act of migrating shows both grit and a willingness to take risks. As outsiders, immigrants are less liable to fall prey to status quo bias and are better able to spot opportunities for doing things differently.”

This certainly chimes in with my experience. The question is: will all those future entrepreneurs and their ilk really choose to move here, especially once they’ve made it? There are many other countries out there, with cheaper rents, better salaries and nicer weather. Britain has decided to become pickier, but seems to have forgotten that both sides can play that game. Will the UK still really deserve the people it seeks to attract?