The British people understand full well that some types of immigration are very much in their interest. The idea that last year’s vote to leave the European Union represented an overwhelming mandate to prevent any new arrivals to this country, regardless of who they are and the reason for their move, is one of the great fallacies of Brexit.
As we report today, the British public strongly supports international students coming to the UK. A ComRes opinion poll for British universities suggests that a large majority of the people realise that foreign students are good for the British economy, and that our universities are one of the nation’s greatest economic and cultural assets. Perhaps most strikingly, the survey suggests that three quarters of of the population agree that foreign students should be allowed to work in the UK for a time after they have graduated, rather than returning immediately to their home country.
This is quite at odds with the rhetoric and policies of Theresa May, the Home Office Prime Minister, who sees Brexit as the opportunity to make up for her failure to reduce net immigration over the past six years. Her problem, as The Independent has repeatedly pointed out, is that the Government of which she was a member did nothing to reduce immigration from outside the EU, which it could have done while the UK was a member of the EU. It did not do so because it was not in the national interest, and it will not be in the national interest when the UK has left the EU.