Brexiteer Tory George Eustice Roasted After Calling For More EU Workers

A Brexit-backing Tory MP has been roasted after he called for more EU workers to help plug staff shortages in the UK.

George Eustice said the government should agree a “youth-mobility visa scheme” which would allow under-35s from the continent to work for up to two years in Britain.

He told The Observer that the move was essential to tackle “acute labour shortages” in areas like the food industry.

Eustice, a former cabinet minister, said: “The flaws in our current so-called skills-based immigration system are becoming clearer by the day because we have got a policy that does not correspond to the needs of our economy.

“We are allowing in people who are deemed skilled such as lawyers, insolvency practitioners, museum officers, even disc jockeys, when we have no shortages whatsoever in those sectors.

“But we are not allowing people to come here to work in sectors like the food industry, even though there are acute labour shortages in these sectors, and that is contributing to inflation.

“So that is the big problem. My proposal is that we commence bilateral negotiations with EU member states, starting with countries like Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic states, and widen it to the whole of the EU eventually, to establish a reciprocal youth-mobility visa scheme.”

However, critics on Twitter pointed out that Brexit had ended the free movement of workers across the EU - leading to the labour shortage Eustice is complaining about.

However, Eustice denied the shortage of workers in certain sectors was a result of Brexit.

He said: “This isn’t because of Brexit. But it is because of the failure of our post-Brexit immigration policy.

“This idea of having no temporary visa schemes was not from the Vote Leave campaign.

“That was not what Brexit was about. People wanted controlled immigration and not to pull up the drawbridge and allow no one in at all.”