Nicola Sturgeon’s immigration hypocrisy

Living in Scotland, it’s depressing to hear the way UK Government ministers talk about immigration. I have one proposal in front of me right now that advocates ‘a points-based approach’ as part of ‘a controlled immigration system to meet our own economic, social and demographic priorities and needs’. Anyone who wishes to ‘work, study or live’ here ‘will have to meet a set of reasonable and fair requirements to gain entry or approval to remain’. Predictably, for all the usual talk about attracting ‘skilled individuals from overseas’, there is the familiar obsession with numbers, especially of non-Europeans: ‘If there are higher than required numbers of non-European Economic Area/Swiss migrants… then this can be addressed through the points-based system’.

Priti Patel is pretty hardline. No wonder Nicola Sturgeon says the Home Secretary’s point-based system ‘can’t be justified’ and ‘would have a devastating impact on Scotland’. Alas, I have been sneaky. The above is not the Home Secretary’s immigration plans: it’s the SNP’s blueprint for an independent Scotland, as set out in the 2014 Scottish Government white