George Eustice believes that in order to tackle post-Brexit labour shortages that he says are driving up inflation, bilateral visa schemes are needed.
A leading Tory Brexiteer has conceded that the UK needs more EU workers and is urging ministers to reopen the country’s borders to tens of thousands of young workers from the European bloc as part of a ‘post Brexit reconciliation’.
George Eustice believes that in order to tackle post-Brexit labour shortages that he says are driving up inflation, bilateral visa schemes are needed.
He also slammed the Home Office’s skills-based immigration rules for ‘failing the country on many levels’, in an extraordinary intervention where he also took aim at the failures of the country’s post-Brexit immigration policy.”
Eustice’s comments come at a time when polls show that both Tory and Leave voters believe Brexit is a ‘failure’.
A poll, carried out by the Times in May shows that 37% of Leave voters believe Brexit has a been a failure, with just 20% saying it a success and 35% sitting on the fence.
Meanwhile, 38% of Tory voters think Brexit has been more of a failure, compared to 22% of Tory voters who think it’s been more of a success.
Former Environment Secretary Eustice said Rishi Sunak’s government should begin bilateral negotiations with EU nations immediately, with a view to offering young Europeans under 35 the right to two- year visas to work in this country, as he urged a “post-Brexit reconciliation” with our European neighbours.
Speaking exclusively to the Observer, Eustice said: “The flaws in our current so-called skills-based immigration system are becoming clearer by the day because we have got a policy that does not correspond to the needs of our economy.
“We are allowing in people who are deemed skilled such as lawyers, insolvency practitioners, museum officers, even disc jockeys, when we have no shortages whatsoever in those sectors. But we are not allowing people to come here to work in sectors like the food industry, even though there are acute labour shortages in these sectors, and that is contributing to inflation.
“So that is the big problem. My proposal is that we commence bilateral negotiations with EU member states, starting with countries like Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic states, and widen it to the whole of the EU eventually, to establish a reciprocal youth-mobility visa scheme.”
Eustice blamed Theresa May when she was prime minister for failing to adopt bilateral visa schemes with EU countries after Brexit.
“This idea of having no temporary visa schemes was not from the Vote Leave campaign,” Eustice said. “It came predominantly from Theresa May. It was a remainer’s interpretation of what Brexit was about. That was not what Brexit was about. People wanted controlled immigration and not to pull up the drawbridge and allow no one in at all.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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