IMMIGRATION looks set to dominate the final days of the General Election campaign with Boris Johnson setting out plans to limit the number of people coming into the UK.
Labour accused the Prime Minister of “misleading” voters.
The Tories plan a new Australian-style points-based system of immigration which would put no limits on highly educated workers, investors or entrepreneurs coming to Britain.
In an interview with Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme, the Prime Minister said he could guarantee “numbers will come down”.
After Brexit, the Tories want to bring in three different types of visa.
The first for “exceptional talent” which, Johnson explained to The Sun, would mean “highly-educated migrants and those with amazing skills — such as performers, scientists or new business entrepreneurs.”
The second would be for skilled workers such as NHS staff, but only when they have a job lined up.
Both of those visas would allow people to live here.
The third visa would be short-term for unskilled workers in sectors where there are employee shortages.
Johnson told The Sunday Times, that there would be “no pathway to residency” under this last visa.
“It’s not raising the drawbridge or slamming the door, far from it.
“It’s keeping Britain open to the world but open to the whole world and in a fair way,” he claimed. In his interview with Sky News, Johnson said: “You have got to have a system by which politicians can say to people, well yes we are letting people in but we are doing it in a way that is controlled and checked.”
On whether he can guarantee that the numbers will come down, he added: “Yes, I can make sure that numbers will come down because we’ll be able to control the system in that way and what I don’t think is right is to have an uncontrolled and unlimited approach to that.”
Johnson continued: “I don’t think people in this country are hostile to immigration at all, let alone being hostile to immigrants, but they want it democratically controlled and that’s what Brexit allows us to do.”
Labour’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth later told the same programme Johnson was “misleading the British people, because he’s trying to give them the impression that he’s going to be bringing immigration down, but when you look at the details of what he’s announced today, he’s saying he’s going to hand over decisions on who will get a visa to an independent committee.”
He added: “There will be no democratic control, there will be no accountability over any decision that any immigration minister makes, because it will be handed over to a statutory independent committee – so again, Boris Johnson’s lying to the British people.”
READ MORE: The people who won't get a say at this election – EU citizens and migrants
During his interview with Sky News, the Prime Minister also claimed a leaked Treasury document about checks on the Northern Ireland border was “wrong”.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn obtained the document – which was allegedly hacked and leaked on to the internet by Russians – claiming it proves there will be customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland after Brexit.
Johnson said: “[This deal] allows the whole of the UK to come out of the EU including Northern Ireland and the only checks that there would be, would be if something was coming from GB via Northern Ireland and was going on to the Republic, then there might be checks at the border into Northern Ireland.”
Pressed on the document, he said “that’s wrong because there won’t be checks”.
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