Marking my own homework

Keir Starmer credit me please

Last year, I co-wrote a paper for the Adam Smith Institute with David Cowan called ‘Selecting the Best’.

With an introduction by Lord David Frost, the paper set out to how to create a more selective immigration system, reduce numbers to the 10s of 1000s & end Human Quantitative Easing.

After the Government’s announcement on migration yesterday, someone at the ASI told me that the press release for this paper was being recirculated on the PA media site as it matched a lot of the wording of the Government’s press release for their immigration update.

Obviously Starmer didn't go nearly as far as we suggested, but it shows how far we've come. So I thought it would be an interesting experiment to run these two papers against each other and check what policies were adopted fully, and which were partially adopted.

I asked Chat GPT to do this, as well as providing a score for closeness of language, not because I’m lazy but because it would be more objective. So here’s what it said;

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✅ Fully Adopted Policies

1. A Points-Based Immigration System

   • “Selecting the Best” recommended a single, flexible points-based system to evaluate all work visa applicants.

   • The white paper confirms the introduction of a “Single Work Visa” system underpinned by a points-based framework for all economic migrants .

2. Salary Thresholds for Work Visas

   • Both documents agree on setting a salary floor (with “Selecting the Best” recommending £30,000 as a norm).

   • The white paper implements a minimum salary threshold of £34,000, aligning with the principle, though at a slightly higher level .

3. Streamlined Visa Categories

   • “Selecting the Best” called for reducing complexity and fragmentation in visa types.

   • The white paper proposes consolidating the various Tier-based routes into fewer, broader categories, fulfilling this recommendation .

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🟡 Partially Adopted Policies

1. Sector-Specific Shortage Occupation Lists

   • “Selecting the Best” advocated for dynamic, data-driven shortage lists to adjust point weightings.

   • The white paper does retain sector-specific shortage lists, but uses them primarily for visa fee discounts and slightly lower salary thresholds rather than materially adjusting points. This represents only partial alignment .

2. Student to Work Route Conversion

   • “Selecting the Best” endorsed allowing international graduates to move easily into the work visa stream.

   • The white paper allows this under stricter conditions (e.g., salary threshold and job offer must be met), limiting the flexibility recommended by the ASI .

3. Caps on Visas

   • “Selecting the Best” proposed no rigid caps, favoring quality filters instead.

   • The white paper imposes an annual cap, but with a mechanism for annual parliamentary review and flexibility by sector. This is a compromise rather than a full rejection or adoption .

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❌ Not Adopted or Opposed Policies

1. No Distinction Between EU and Non-EU Migrants

   • “Selecting the Best” argued for treating all migrants equally post-Brexit.

   • The white paper still makes certain distinctions, especially with respect to streamlined applications from traditional partners (e.g., Commonwealth), partially retaining a geographic bias .

2. Auction-Based Visa Allocation

   • The ASI proposed a radical pilot of auctioning some visa slots to employers.

   • The white paper makes no mention of this approach and retains central planning for all allocations .

3. Abolishing the NHS Surcharge

   • The think tank called for scrapping the NHS surcharge in favour of integrated taxation.

   • The white paper retains the surcharge and proposes raising it, in direct opposition to the recommendation .

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The cosine similarity score between the two documents—Selecting the Best and the government's Restoring Control Over the Immigration System white paper—is 0.60 (on a scale from 0 to 1).

This indicates a moderate to strong overlap in language and content, suggesting that while the documents are not identical, they share substantial thematic and linguistic similarities.

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I remain sceptical of these reforms, in particular the fact they are being made to combat Reform and aren’t holistic enough to tackle the structural economic dependency on immigration and HQE. But people have put a lot of effort into refuting the economic arguments for migration, and the fact a Labour Prime Minister has now accepted the fact that immigration is not actually economic rocket fuel - and that many Labour MPs are supporting this - shows how far the vibe has shifted. But it is a start, if not an end.