‘I came to the UK 11 years ago, PhD in hand,’ Tanja Bueltmann, a professor of migration history at Northumbria University, tweeted. ‘I’ve taught hundreds of British students and have volunteered hundreds of hours in our communities to support elderly and disabled British people. Under the planned points-system for immigration, I would never have been able to come.’
Bueltmann’s tweet made waves. Not just because of how profoundly sad it is that someone so beneficial to the UK would no longer be considered valuable enough to work here, but because she represents so many others migrants sharing the same sentiments.
Under the proposed new immigration system beginning in 2021, the UK will not give a visa to any non-skilled workers. Crucially though, skill is defined by salary – anyone wanting to come to the UK must have a job offer with a minimum salary of £25,600. Allowances will be made in special cases, for example, when someone is fulfilling a skill the UK has a shortage in like nursing. However, even then the person must have a salary of £20,480.
It could spell disaster for the health and care industries, as well as hospitality, food-processing and construction, where huge numbers of employees come from EU countries. For example, according to a 2017 warning from Pret A Manger, only one in 50 job applications they receive are from British applicants. But it also spells disaster for anyone wanting to come here for an entry-level job across so many industries where salaries do not start in the mid-£20k range.
Bueltmann works in academia, but she too would never have made up enough points to get a UK visa when she moved here in 2009. ‘I wouldn’t have met the £25,600 salary threshold with my first job,’ she told Grazia. ‘I also wouldn’t have fit into the skills-shortage category and I only had an interview for my first job lined up, not a secure offer.’
Moving here from New Zealand, where Bueltmann had been awarded her PhD from the Victoria University of Wellington, the German native came to the UK having already lived here as part of her Erasmus exchange year. ‘My work was broadly on British migration and I already knew the academic system,’ she says. ‘But a big part of the motivation was that I had fallen in love with the UK when I was a student here. It just all made the most sense to use my skills to teach students in England.’
Quickly securing the job she was interviewing for as a senior research assistant at Northumbria University, Bueltmann climbed up the ranks to become a professor of history in 2017, a short succession in the academia world. ‘I was really successful getting grant income from a scheme called Future Research Leaders,’ she says. ‘So in terms of giving back to the UK, I didn’t necessarily turn up ready but I developed very quickly into someone who could. And the benefits are then for the UK, because of course the UK didn’t pay anything for my education – as with most migrants, people come here already with their education or skillset ready.’
In the 11 years she has lived here, Bueltmann has built a life that revolves around giving back. Not only has she given an education to hundreds of British people, she volunteers in homes that support elderly and disabled people and set up the EU Citizens’ Champion programme that aims to protect the rights of other EU citizens who made the UK their home.
If one day all immigrants stopped doing what they do, and not just at work, the UK would come to a standstill.
‘We help make this country tick every single day,’ she says. ‘If one day, all immigrants stopped doing what they do, and not just at work, there would be a complete standstill in the UK. If suddenly the person who helps their neighbour with the shopping doesn’t do it, for example. Generally speaking, people contribute in many different ways and people forget about that so easily.’
It’s what makes this new points-system so hurtful for people like Bueltmann, because not only does it spread an anti-migrant rhetoric that, she says, she has had first-hand experience of on a number of occasions, but it tells migrants like her that they’re not valuable to the country they’ve called home for much of their life.
‘For the people already here, it makes them feel terrible because it basically says “you're bad and that’s why we’re changing this system",’ she explains. ‘But the people here are not bad, they contribute more than they take out – every study, every single study, shows that.’
Bueltmann has a unique point of view on this issue, because not only is she an immigrant but she’s also an expert in migration history. Thus, she can offer an explanation as to why, she says, the new system can only make things worse for the UK.
‘Many, many people from many, many professions do not meet the salary requirements - especially in the care sector, health sector and hospitality sectors,’ she says. ‘But the main reason it won’t work is simply because the government has decided to define skills by pay.
‘They have reclassified a few groups of people and all of those below the salary threshold are now classed as unskilled, but it includes a lot of people who have great skills and make vital contributions to everyday life – for example in the care sector – who are now by default excluded from coming here.’
Then there’s the problem that a lot of the sectors impacted are those that British workers statistically do not show an interested in. ‘Priti Patel said that these jobs could be done by British people who are, as she says, “economically inactive”’ Bueltmann continues. ‘But largely, these are people who are either retired or might be carers for their family members.'
Are we talking about forcing people into jobs they don’t want to do?
‘Even if they are just people who don’t want to do these jobs, are we talking about forcing people into jobs they don’t want to do? We’re getting into really dodgy territory here,’ she adds.
And quite crucially, the anti-migrant atmosphere this points system creates in the UK matters. ‘More and more people will see that the UK has created this hostile environment,’ she says. ‘Immigrants have agency and make choices about where they want to go, why would someone want to come here when you see the hostile environment and complex regulations? That element is usually forgotten.’
Some, like Bueltmann, fear that this new system not only disregards the value of migrant workers, but also the needs of the British people themselves. We will all be impacted by this decision to treat migrants like pound signs versus human beings that contribute massively to our society, not just our economy. The government may not value skills beyond those you can qualify at £25,600 and above, but the British public certainly do – whether they realise that now or in 10-months’ time when we feel the real ramifications of this system.
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