Quatarization
An instantish reaction…
I note that the Home Secretary has said there will no longer be an immigration route for ‘low-skilled’ workers.
This will, I think, turn out to be a lie.
Paragraph 24 of the very policy paper she was announcing states:
The future system will also deliver on ‘Mode 4’ commitments for temporary service suppliers, in line with existing and future trade agreements.
I will not be very surprised if Mode 4 become the key route for essential labour in key sectors, as the government agrees to trade agreements.
The paper seeks to downplay the potential for growth of this method of visa issuing, saying merely that:
Mode 4 refers to commitments that the UK takes in free trade agreements in respect of the temporary entry and stay of business persons. These commitments typically cover business visitors, intra-company transfers and contractual service suppliers and independent professionals.
“Typically” is doing a lot of work here, because there is no reason that Mode 4 methods will not be expanded to large sections of the economy, including agriculture and social care.
The difference between now and then (i.e. soon)is that these Mode 4 workers will have absolutely no protections under what remains of UK labour law, because they will be in the direct employ of the overseas WTO-savvy “service providers” that will spring up, perhaps in league with the likes of Serco and MITIE, in the wake of the governments desperation-driven FTA agreements [1]
These providers will have the effective power to issue visas to the employees that they will then exploit to the max, before extracting the untaxed profit on their non-income tax paying exploited workers out of the UK, making the idea of “taking back control of our borders” sound even more absurd.
So, for what’s coming, see also: Bahrain, Dubai, Quatarization etc, but with without the oil wealth and with added destitution, as Universal Credit sanctions are imposed on people in no position to take up the “job offers” that are officially in place, but in practice covered by un-temporary temporary exploited labourers.
Notes
[1] Perhaps the biggest perversity in all this is that the way the Johnson regime plans to use WTO Mode 4 arrangements to exploit & undercut in Brexit Britain is exactly what Lexiteers said would happen if we stayed in the EU with bargaining power to limit it.
