The Labour government has unveiled its true colours, and they are the colours of Fortress Britain. Recent changes to the skilled worker visa system were rushed through using a ‘statutory instrument’ thereby avoiding meaningful consultation. Tens of thousands of workers face sudden deportation.
The 1 July changes represent a significant tightening of immigration rules. The entire policy, however, is deeply flawed and threatens to harm both migrant workers and the wider interests of the working class. The trade union movement has to defend every worker and fight for open borders.
The government has made major changes to the Skilled Worker visa regulations that will severely restrict labour migration. The minimum skills requirement has been raised from RQF Level 3 to RQF Level 6 (degree level) for most new applications, effectively removing over 100 roles from eligibility.
These roles are in major industries such as rail, air travel, police and fire services (excluding paramedics), hospitality, education, and dental care. A blanket ban on overseas social care workers also came into effect. Simultaneously, the salary threshold has been increased to £41,000, placing many essential jobs out of reach.
Furthermore, the Immigration Skills Charge (ISC), a fee employers must pay when sponsoring a visa applicant, is increasing by 32%. This charge, introduced in 2017 to punish bosses reliant on migrant workers, now stands at £1,320 for medium and large businesses.
The government has also replaced the Immigration Salary List with a more restrictive Temporary Shortage List, a time-limited measure that prohibits workers from bringing dependents, with a new, harsher system promised for 2026. This ‘transitional’ measure denies workers the right to bring their families, here to join them, reinforcing the barbaric logic that migrant workers are temporary units of labour, not human beings with rights.
The impact of these measures will be to deport hundreds of thousands of workers once their visas expire. This will create artificial labour shortages in key sectors, potentially disrupting services and placing greater strain on existing staff.
By reducing immigration to a smaller, more ‘high skilled’ and highly paid pool of eligible migrant workers, they create a two-tier workforce, where a section of workers is permanently insecure, isolated and thus easier to superexploit. Contrary to the racists’ propaganda, the precarity migrants are forced into will undermine wage conditions for all.
RMT campaign
The response from the trade union movement has been woefully inadequate. Despite having policies supporting migration, almost no unions have spoken out against these changes.
RMT’s tube workers have proved the exception, campaigning to defend their colleagues. But General Secretary Eddie Dempsey’s speech to a protest outside the Home Office last month was dangerously limited, framing it as a narrow contractual issue and only calling for a ‘fair and workable immigration system’. Thankfully rank and file railworkers were more class conscious!
But this policy does not just affect railworkers; it affects the whole working class. It divides workers and weakens collective bargaining. Alongside sector specific responses, unions should be championing a coordinated, class based response.
The current strategy of silence or limited opposition fails to challenge the government’s divisive narrative and cedes ground to those who would blame migrants for problems created by austerity and economic mismanagement.
This will require a fundamental shift in strategy. The labour movement must unite behind a clear and principled alternative, demanding:
- The abolition of all immigration controls to establish the free movement of people
- An end to visas charges
- No deportations
We must fight for full rights for every worker, guaranteeing equal pay, conditions, and trade union rights, regardless of nationality or immigration status. Ultimately, this means preparing for coordinated industrial action across all sectors, challenging the TUC to oppose the government’s agenda with the collective power of the whole movement.
Our strength has always been in our unity. By organising in the workplaces and unions, we can build a militant, internationalist fightback for a world without borders.
