Immigration and a government in a state of post-hypnotic suggestion

Hurrah! The government, it was reported yesterday, is working on getting some more migrants. To plug a million-strong post-Brexit labour shortage in the hospitality sector, Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick have been instructed by Downing Street to start talks to open the doors to young French, German, Spanish and Swiss nationals.

If it goes well, the plan is to perhaps invite a few more to help out with farming, fish processing and all sorts of other sectors of the economy that are looking a bit peaky. ‘European baristas and au pairs could return to Britain under government scheme’, read the headline. Just like the good old days, eh?  

This seems eminently sensible to me, as I expect it will to many people. It’s a win-win. Brexit, whatever its many-splendoured virtues, has given a bit of a knock to our national supply of handsome, olive-skinned twentysomething Europeans prepared to make flat whites, sling croissants and serve chicken nuggets to the children of overstretched North London liberals.