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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/02/the-guardian-view-on-javid-and-johnson-whats-the-conservative-future
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| The Guardian view on Javid and Johnson: what’s the Conservative future? | The Guardian view on Javid and Johnson: what’s the Conservative future? |
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| Two of the biggest names in Conservative politics took to the stage today and presented contrasting views of the future of the Tory party. Neither was a liberal speech. Sajid Javid’s peroration at least had the virtue of being serious. Boris Johnson’s declamation was a trademark rabble-rousing rejection of normal political processes of bargain and compromise. Mr Johnson has turned being disloyal on the most divisive issue facing the government into the world’s longest job application. | Two of the biggest names in Conservative politics took to the stage today and presented contrasting views of the future of the Tory party. Neither was a liberal speech. Sajid Javid’s peroration at least had the virtue of being serious. Boris Johnson’s declamation was a trademark rabble-rousing rejection of normal political processes of bargain and compromise. Mr Johnson has turned being disloyal on the most divisive issue facing the government into the world’s longest job application. |
| Yet it is the home secretary’s policies that represent a substantial intervention. Mr Javid proposed a concrete break with the past, with the UK’s departure from the European Union presenting, he said, an opportunity to “design the immigration system from scratch”. The result is that a post-Brexit UK will aim to treat EU and non-EU nationals the same – allowing the government to prioritise highly-skilled migrants over low-skilled migrants, according to Mr Javid and Theresa May. This preference will have big consequences. | Yet it is the home secretary’s policies that represent a substantial intervention. Mr Javid proposed a concrete break with the past, with the UK’s departure from the European Union presenting, he said, an opportunity to “design the immigration system from scratch”. The result is that a post-Brexit UK will aim to treat EU and non-EU nationals the same – allowing the government to prioritise highly-skilled migrants over low-skilled migrants, according to Mr Javid and Theresa May. This preference will have big consequences. |
| Last month the government’s independent migration advisory committee (MAC) found that high-skilled migration is economically beneficial but offered no evidence that low-skilled migration is detrimental to the economy. Indeed, cutting off the supply could severely disrupt sectors such as food manufacturing, care and construction, which rely on European low-skilled labour. It is entirely reasonable for Mr Javid to suggest that the government could exempt key industries which rely on foreign workers. It would have been even better for the government to focus instead on the country’s long-term needs and drop the arbitrary migration targets, which give the sense of a narrow-minded Britain walling itself off from the world. | Last month the government’s independent migration advisory committee (MAC) found that high-skilled migration is economically beneficial but offered no evidence that low-skilled migration is detrimental to the economy. Indeed, cutting off the supply could severely disrupt sectors such as food manufacturing, care and construction, which rely on European low-skilled labour. It is entirely reasonable for Mr Javid to suggest that the government could exempt key industries which rely on foreign workers. It would have been even better for the government to focus instead on the country’s long-term needs and drop the arbitrary migration targets, which give the sense of a narrow-minded Britain walling itself off from the world. |
| It is important to remember that the government’s plans are just a gambit in the Brexit negotiation. Assuming the Brexit talks manage to get through to March, serious discussions will then commence, during the transition, on a free trade deal. Ministers expect the EU to ask for its citizens to continue with employment rights in return for the kind of comprehensive agreement on a future trading arrangement that the UK wants. | It is important to remember that the government’s plans are just a gambit in the Brexit negotiation. Assuming the Brexit talks manage to get through to March, serious discussions will then commence, during the transition, on a free trade deal. Ministers expect the EU to ask for its citizens to continue with employment rights in return for the kind of comprehensive agreement on a future trading arrangement that the UK wants. |
| Mr Javid clearly feels the Brexit vote shows that most people are motivated by more than economic gain, as demonstrated by his integration policy (cue tougher language requirements and a new “values test”). There is certainly something in the idea that public opinion has clearly travelled in this direction in the last decade, stoked by some irresponsible and despicable rhetoric. The home secretary has at least balanced a harsh approach to migration with a more generous view of ethnic minorities already settled here. He is the first Muslim to hold one of Britain’s great offices of state. In a time of fractious politics, it was good to hear him pay tribute to his shadow Diane Abbott and note that she was the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons. Such a grown-up attitude to opponents ought to be welcomed. | Mr Javid clearly feels the Brexit vote shows that most people are motivated by more than economic gain, as demonstrated by his integration policy (cue tougher language requirements and a new “values test”). There is certainly something in the idea that public opinion has clearly travelled in this direction in the last decade, stoked by some irresponsible and despicable rhetoric. The home secretary has at least balanced a harsh approach to migration with a more generous view of ethnic minorities already settled here. He is the first Muslim to hold one of Britain’s great offices of state. In a time of fractious politics, it was good to hear him pay tribute to his shadow Diane Abbott and note that she was the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons. Such a grown-up attitude to opponents ought to be welcomed. |
| Mr Javid has made a start in navigating a tricky brief, in which he must design a new immigration system while dealing with the consequences of this country’s largest-ever wave of immigration. He has done so while extracting his department from the mess that his predecessor Amber Rudd got into over the Windrush scandal, which originated in the prime minister’s disastrous hostile environment policies. That those policies endure is to be lamented. But it is nonetheless a reflection of where the Conservative party finds itself that it was Mr Johnson’s speech, rather than Mr Javid’s, that got the applause. | Mr Javid has made a start in navigating a tricky brief, in which he must design a new immigration system while dealing with the consequences of this country’s largest-ever wave of immigration. He has done so while extracting his department from the mess that his predecessor Amber Rudd got into over the Windrush scandal, which originated in the prime minister’s disastrous hostile environment policies. That those policies endure is to be lamented. But it is nonetheless a reflection of where the Conservative party finds itself that it was Mr Johnson’s speech, rather than Mr Javid’s, that got the applause. |
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