Politics and the university

Anything to keep foreigners out. Rich, white, Christian or atheist foreigners are fine, of course. I suppose they also should be cisgender, straight, and able-bodied. Come to think of it; if they are rich enough, they don't have to be white, Christian, or anything like that. If you are some Saudi oil billionaire you can just come in. People who actually contribute to society should stay out. They have the duty of being the scapegoat for everything that's wrong with Britain.

The Tories are desperately trying to hang on to power by being unpleasant to foreigners. Now they have decided on a whole range of measures to keep legal immigrants out. The most striking measures are that you can't have a foreign family member join you unless you earn at least £38.700 (it used to be £26,200), and that care workers (who have absolutely no chance in hell to earn that amount of money) can't bring dependants with them at all. 

I'm sure this policy will work. Fewer perfidious foreigners will come in. But wtf do they think they will achieve with this? Will foreigner-bullying give them an election victory? Very unlikely. And even if it does; how much damage will they do before that? How much misery will they cause to people who, in this international age, have started a relationship with someone of a different nationality and residency? How many children will be separated from a parent because the parent cannot afford to be with them?

Additionally, the radio was full of people who run care homes, who said that they would have to close when this measure would come into force. The government says they should recruit within the country, but they said they had tried, and it doesn't work. They also admitted that if they just offer a higher salary, they would, but there is no state support for doing that. And I am sure there are a few rarefied care homes for rich people who do offer that kind of salary, and I am sure they would be able to recruit, but that would mean social care would be only available for the rich. Which would be exactly what a Tory government would want to happen, but it is also deeply awful. And if the state isn't supporting you, and your clients are not filthily rich, you just can't offer the sort of salary that would be needed. So you'll have to close. And where will the residence then go?

Another issue is that, largely again for reasons of government decisions, British universities heavily depend on income generated by overseas Master students. UK students already pay a fortune for their education, but international students pay almost twice as much. Universities are practically bludgeoning each other's heads in in order to secure the highest number of international students. And now the government has just decided to actively discourage anyone to show up. Great.

That was another meeting by the University Senate; my second. A lot of things were discussed, of course; student recruitment, the financial situation, student satisfaction, the whole lot. But also, of course, the new policies, and what it would mean for us. Given that they had only been announced two days before, the university hasn't had much time to contemplate things. The person who spoke about the situation did sound confident. But we'll see how this pans out! This could be really big. But I also think that the government will realise that toppling over universities might not be a very good election strategy. I really hope they reconsider. And I also really hope it backfires, and our next government will be Labour. Who, hopefully, would have the wisdom to bin these policies as fast as you can say "xenophobia"…

A random job ad for a lecturer from the University job vacancy page. Someone who gets this job on the lowest space scale might be full-time permanent academic staff, but still not earn enough to have a spouse come over!