Britain Plans to Tighten Rules on Immigration

Well, it looks like Gordon Brown is finally going to make good on his controversial 2007 promise: "British Jobs for British Workers." In his first major address on immigration since taking office, the prime minister outlined a series of proposals yesterday to limit the number of professions that can recruit from outside Europe.

Specifically, more than 250,000 skilled engineering, medical care and catering jobs would be closed to non-European overseas workers next year. Employers would be able to recruit skilled migrants in these sectors only if they can show that no suitably qualified "settled worker" - e.g., someone who is a national of the European Economic Area or is legally settled in the United Kingdom -- can be found. And such posts will have to be advertised for four weeks rather than the current two before they can be filled by non-European workers. Finally, government-sponsored job-training programs are being set up to encourage unskilled British workers take jobs in sectors where there are genuine skills shortages.

In his address, the prime minister also outlined plans to review the student visa program with an eye to raising the minimum educational degree to which foreign students can apply. These measures come on the heels of an initiative introduced last summer to dramatically ramp up the requirements for becoming a British citizen.

The proposed changes come amid a heightened political sensitivity around immigration in the U.K.

Last month, a former speech writer for the Blair government revealed that Blair's Labour government had deliberately relaxed its controls on immigration earlier in the decade partly for political reasons. Although the stated goal was economic, the policy was apparently also enacted in order to make the U.K. "truly multicultural" and "rub the Right's nose in diversity."

Regardless of its origin, there are also questions about whether that policy has been well-managed. Last month, the Office for National Statistics predicted that the U.K. population would rise from 61 million today to 71 million in 2033. When immigrants' children are added, it is expected that immigration will account for 68 percent of population growth in the United Kingdom in the next quarter-century.

Earlier this month, British Home Secretary Alan Johnson admitted that the Labour government had ignored immigration problems and the growing pressure on jobs and services in parts of Britain. And a secret government report leaked to the Daily Mail on Sunday suggested that a massive rise in immigration next year could prompt a crisis in schools, housing and welfare services.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the opposition Conservative party dismissed yesterday's initiative as "hollow" and an attempt to "shut the stable door long after the horse has bolted."

And nearly everyone sees the new immigration rules as an attempt by Brown to fend of an electoral challenge from far-right parties that are eating into the government's core base of white, working-class voters. Earlier this month, the British justice secretary failed to adequately defend the current immigration policies on a much publicized BBC television show, whose guests included the head of the far-right British National Party.

In light of all of these economic and political cross-currents, it certainly looks as if the Brits can expect to see greater -- not fewer -- controls on immigration in the future. And it's hard to imagine that if the Tories get elected, they will be any less lenient. Like America's ongoing debates over health care reform, immigration has become a front-burner issue, both politically and electorally.

And who knows? Maybe now that he's unemployed, Lou Dobbs would like to advise the British government on what to do about it.


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