HOME SECRETARY Sajid Javid is edging closer towards a nasty policy of regional work permits for migrants, which would use the “hostile environment” apparatus to push all new migrants into a legal status as second-class citizens.

The thing to grasp is that the real sting in post-Brexit government migration policy is not about “numbers” it is about rights. 

The Tories claim that they want to leave the EU because they will have control of migration and be able to reduce “numbers” to satisfy anti-migrant feelings. 

But the government could do something worse — they could keep the level of migration, but make migrant workers coming to Britain have much weaker legal rights. 

This would satisfy both people who have been stirred up to have nasty anti-migrant prejudices, and bad employers who want to have lots of workers they can bully.

This is one way it can start: in June Javid asked the migration advisory committee to look at “regional salary thresholds for different parts of the UK” to cover migrants in new rules being written for 2021. 

That may sound bland or inoffensive, but could drastically reduce migrant rights, putting them much more under control of the boss.

Right now, migrants from within the European Union can come and work here on exactly the same terms as British workers. 

The only exception is that, while they do pay taxes, they can’t vote in general elections — so we have about two million workers who are disenfranchised. That’s bad, but otherwise they have the same workplace rights. 

This is important because, as the union slogan goes, an injury to one is an injury to all. Bad employers have to make special efforts to bully migrant workers and cause division in the workforce.  

The government currently gets the migration advisory committee to set a “minimum salary threshold” for non-EU migrants applying for a “Tier 2” work visa. 

This is set artificially high, at £30,000 a year. Non-EU migrants applying for a work visa must have a £30,000 a year job to enter Britain. 

It is way above average earnings, but the government is OK with that because EU migrants can fill jobs with lower wages. 

There are far more EU migrants than Tier 2 migrants. But after Brexit there will be a lot of pressure from employers to have a lower salary threshold, because it will apply to all migrants, and they want migrant workers to work in many jobs.  

Javid’s solution is to think about regional salary thresholds. He could say there is a particular shortage of workers in Scotland, so migrants could enter Scotland for lower-salary jobs. 

This is sometimes offered as a “liberal” solution, that would allow for higher numbers of migrants. It is actually a policy that was designed by Migrant Matters Trust, a supposedly liberal organisation backed by Tory/Change UK MP Anna Soubry and former Labour home secretary Barbara Roche. 

Except it is profoundly illiberal. It would actually mean we would lose freedom of movement within Britain itself — because the plan also has to stop, say, a young couple who migrated to Scotland from Spain or the Philippines moving to London.  

Regional migrant pay thresholds means a system of work permits. And introducing a system of pass laws. It means the government issuing documents to migrants and then saying: “Can I see your papers please” when they want to move home. 

For the system to work, migrants would need employers to sponsor their work permits. If they wanted to move, they would need a new work permit.

Migration Matters Trust board member Garvan Walshe, an assistant to Tory lord and former minster Pauline Neville-Jones, explained in their version of  the scheme: “It wouldn’t mean Essex posting border guards on M25 off-ramps to keep more free-wheeling London’s immigrants out. Just as most of a bank’s work isn’t conducted by the tellers at the counter, most immigration control happens ‘behind the border,’ by controlling access to welfare, requiring employers to only employ people with permission to work, and so on.”

That’s meant to be reassuring, but it should sound familiar. It is the machinery of the “hostile environment,” where you turn every hospital, workplace, rental agency, bank, benefit office into a border guard. Then apply it to millions more people. 

You create a new category of worker — a category which could apply to literally millions — who have to ask for a stamp from their boss to move job, move house or go to hospital. 

It is an anti-migrant recipe that doesn’t reduce the number of migrants — it reduces migrants to second or third-class citizens. 

In a way that is no surprise: typically economic systems driven by prejudice or racism do not exclude minority workers, even if they claim they will. 

Taking two very extreme examples, South Africa or the southern United States were run on racism. They also had very large black populations. They were not excluded from the country, they were excluded from rights.

This is why what sounds like a bland statement about “regional pay thresholds” is something we have to keep an eye on. Setting up a pass law and work permit system post-Brexit will exploit migrants. 

It will also lead to more exploitation of all workers, because if some of our workmates in every shop, office, works or warehouse have lesser rights, you can bet we will all see our pay and conditions pushed down.