PRITI Patel has rejected her own immigration advisers’ calls to open our borders to cheap foreign brickies after Brexit.
The Home Secretary would rather Brits who have lost jobs in the pandemic retrain for such roles.
Her stand pitched her against experts from the Migration Advisory Committee who wanted to relax measures to fill the skills shortage.
Last month, a MAC report recommended brickies, butchers and welders be added to occupations that should see more relaxed immigration rules to fill vacancies.
But a Whitehall source close to the Home Secretary said she was “standing up for the white van man across the country”.
They added: “We must be realistic about the effect Covid has had on the labour market and economy, and we know that people across the UK are currently looking for work.
“That is why it is right that we focus on the needs of British people.”
From January, European criminals who have served a year in jail will be automatically barred from entering the UK even as a tourist.
Those sentenced for less than a year will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Sex offenders, career criminals and those convicted in the past 12 months will also be banned.
European rough sleepers who refuse help or support could also be deported.
But the controls will not apply to those granted settled status, for a breach of human rights laws, or if the crime is not recognised in the UK.
But Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds called the measures a “fantasy” as access to many of the criminal databases had not yet been secured in negotiations with the EU.
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