Poets, DJs and DEI officers? Britain’s ‘skilled’ visa list is a joke

If we thought the UK’s immigration system couldn’t get any more farcical, then the Labour government has managed to prove us wrong once again.

The Telegraph has revealed that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) ‘experts’ can enter the UK on a ‘skilled worker’ visa. These visas allow holders to remain in the UK for up to five years. They are supposed to help British firms plug critical skills shortages in the labour market that would otherwise go unfilled. In practice, however, it seems that just about any job you can imagine can qualify for a visa.

According to the Home Office, some of the occupations eligible for a skilled-worker visa include magicians, children’s entertainers, DJs, poets, bloggers and social-media influencers. Incredibly, you can even come to the UK as a teacher of English as a foreign language – meaning that Britain is essentially importing teachers from abroad in order to help other migrants learn English.

The irony is, this list of jobs eligible for a skilled-worker visa was actually drawn up in May as part of a proposed ‘crackdown’ on migration. Home secretary Yvette Cooper promised a stricter immigration system that would be based on skills needed ‘here in the UK’. Low-skilled workers, she promised, would only be eligible for visas in ‘critical industries’, such as construction and engineering. Yet staff at the Home Office seemingly haven’t got the memo. Or perhaps it’s simply another case of Labour speaking from both sides of its mouth when it comes to immigration.

The listing of DEI officers in the UK’s skilled-worker visa scheme is especially bizarre. For one thing, there is hardly a shortage of diversity employees. Indeed, research suggests that the UK has more diversity and inclusion staff per capita than any other country on Earth. Nor has the British experience of the unholy DEI trinity been remotely positive. It has spread divisive concepts such as ‘white privilege’ through British workplaces. It has encouraged employees to see each other as racist or bigoted. When homegrown DEI initiatives have done enough damage, why would we want to import more officers from abroad?

Other occupations on the list suggest the UK isn’t about to wean itself off its chronic dependency on migration any time soon. This is especially clear when it comes to health and social care. There is a catalogue of nursing professions included in the list, from midwifery to mental-health practice. There is also a specific category labelled ‘care workers and home carers’, which covers both residential and home carers, as well as community-support workers. No doubt these roles do require skills and training, and need filling in the short term. But where are the government’s efforts to train up our own citizens in such a critical sector? Why can’t we make jobs in health and social care more appealing, such as by raising pay?

Time and again, British voters make it clear that they want controlled immigration, prioritising the highly skilled and economically productive. Instead, despite Labour’s promises to the contrary, we are still inviting hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers, driving down wages and removing any incentive for businesses to invest in training the next generation.

Few issues expose the gulf between the British public and the political class like immigration. The skilled-worker list suggests that this is a gulf that’s not going to be bridged any time soon.

Rakib Ehsan is the author of Beyond Grievance: What the Left Gets Wrong about Ethnic Minorities, which is available to order on Amazon.