Britain’s Conservative Party promised to restrict immigration during the last election campaign. But the policies they unveiled this week are pointless and self-defeating. At a time when Britain should be doing everything it can to help private business, the government is deliberately setting out to make things harder by imposing an arbitary cap on the number of skilled migrants who can come into the country to work.

The people the government are seeking to exclude are not poor foreigners who will compete with unskilled workers, or who will sit around on the dole. These are talented people with job offers, who will help British businesses to grow and who will pay taxes in Britain and spend their salaries here. And yet the government is intent on cutting their numbers. Read more