GRANTHAM and Stamford MP Nick Boles has become the first Conservative minister to suggest the government’s approach to immigration is damaging Britain’s global competitiveness.
The skills and equalities minister said many people were not applying to work in the UK because they believed it would be “impossibly hard” to get in.
“There is a worry that the impression had gone out that you’re never going to get into the UK, and no doubt some of our competitor nations are using that,” the skills and equalities minister said in an interview with Total Politics.
His remarks will be seen as a rebuke to the Home Office, which insists that the UK is still welcoming global talent, and to Michael Fallon, who asserted at the weekend that British towns were being “swamped” by immigrants.
David Cameron set out that new line at the Conservative party conference last month when he told delegates that migration levels from EU states had increased in a way that is “too much for our communities” and vowed to sort it out.
Mr Boles agreed with the German position on Tuesday, admitting that the UK “may never be able to control” migration entirely “because it’s a fundamental principle of the EU”.
“It will be very hard for the British people to accept that, for as long as Britain remains the most dynamic economy in the EU we’re going to be the net recipient of a very large amount of immigration every year. And it’s going to be hard to bring those people back on board.”
Mr Boles is the first Conservative minister to suggest his own government’s immigration reforms are restricting talent flows into the UK.
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