We can’t blindly support an immigration plan we’ve never seen – what we really need is a Final Say on the Brexit deal

The public is being asked to take a leap in the dark without any details about the deal’s impact on workers and industry. How can any vote be ‘meaningful’ while such vital information is lacking?

In the end, Brexit always comes back to immigration. It was the main theme of those who agitated for the referendum, it dominated the campaign, and now restricting EU migration is the main argument the government is using to sell its Brexit deal to the public. That migration is the only one of the prime minister’s famous “red lines” to survive the Brexit process, shows just how much of a driving force this aim has been to Downing Street throughout the last two years.

Given this, it is striking that we are yet to have a really honest conversation about EU migration in this country. The government still euphemistically talks about “control over our borders” rather than the actual restrictions it wants to place on the ability of EU citizens to come and work here. And now we are told the government is delaying publication of its immigration white paper until after the crucial “meaningful vote” on the deal. On the one hand we are being asked to support this deal because it allows us set our own migration policies, on the other we are prevented from scrutinising those policies.

We do, however, know the central principle of the government’s migration policy, which is creating a distinction between “good” EU migration which relates to “high-skilled” people, and “bad” migration, which refers to “low-skilled” migrants. There are two major problems with this scheme. The first is that a lot of the genuinely low-skilled EU migration is essential to our economy, which is why there are suggestions the government is quietly planning to allow agricultural workers and construction workers to continue to move here relatively easily.

The bigger problem, is that the government plans to use an arbitrary salary threshold to distinguish “low-skilled” from “high-skilled”. It is a system already discredited for non-EU migration – applying it to EU migrants will have a devastating effect. For example, highly qualified specialists like archaeologists, lab technicians, scientists and environmental officers all have starting salaries under the expected government threshold, and so will find it incredibly difficult to come to the UK. Even in public sector science and research, many roles will be under the threshold because of the government’s own pay cap.

Given government rhetoric about skilled migration, it is ironic the Prospect union members that have consistently raised the loudest concerns with us about this new migration system are Stem professionals. Scientists are famously led to their conclusions by careful study of evidence, and watching their profession being put at risk by a government determined to ignore all the evidence presented to it, has been infuriating for UK members of the discipline.

For an industry that relies on the ability to collaborate and share skills and experience across borders, especially through the exchange of people, any restriction on scientists’ ability to do so would be hugely damaging. And of course, one thing we do know for certain – because it is written into the text of the political declaration being debated – is there will be “reciprocity” in the arrangements. In simple terms, the more rights we take away from EU citizens, the more our citizens lose.

This is all so utterly self-defeating. The government says it wants to remain a member of EU agencies and programmes such as Euratom Research and Training, Horizon, and the European Chemicals Agency, but it then argues for migration restrictions that could imperil our membership of these organisations.

The government says we need control over our borders but then tries to hide its new migration system from public scrutiny. It says that is about making sure we have skilled migration, but then constructs a system where it will be easier to come here with no qualifications and pick fruit for £15,000 a year, than to come with a PhD and earn £25,000 working in a laboratory. The one remaining pillar of the prime minister’s Brexit plan is built on sand.

There is still time to act to defend sectors like science from this vandalism. Science needs answers. But so too do other sectors where skills and pay don’t always correlate, such as heritage, the arts and culture. The government must publish its immigration white paper so we can finally have a sensible debate about its proposals.

Politicians and the public alike are being asked to take a leap in the dark by signing up to the prime minister’s deal without any certainty or detail about what will happen on immigration, or how it will affect workers and industry. How can any vote be “meaningful” when such vital information is lacking?

On Monday The Independent submitted a 1.5 million signature petition calling for a Final Say referendum. As a union, we always put the terms of any deal back to our members to approve once it has been negotiated. It’s time the government gave us the full facts, and allowed the public the same right to have the final say on the deal it has negotiated.

Sue Ferns is senior deputy general secretary of the Prospect trade union