UK tells business to train Britons in Brexit migrant clampdown

Bloomberg

Theresa May called on employers to train more British workers to fill vacancies after Brexit, after a leaked document suggested the UK is preparing to limit and discourage immigration from the EU.
The prime minister said low-skilled immigration has hit the wages of British people and promised to control the numbers coming in after the country leaves the EU in 2019.
May insisted Britain will welcome “the brightest and the best” from overseas, but her office made clear that businesses must ensure British workers benefit in future.
“There is a reason for wanting to ensure that we can control migration,” the premier told lawmakers in London. “It is because of the impact that net migration can have on people—on access to services, on access to infrastructure—but crucially it often hits those on the lower end of the income scale hardest. It’s important we bring in controls.”
May’s comments came after a draft government plan, leaked to The Guardian newspaper, set out measures to restrict immigration from the EU and prioritize British workers for jobs. Taken together, the plan and the premier’s remarks suggest May’s Tory government is determined to crack down on migration, despite failing to win a majority and a clear mandate in June’s election.
May and many Euro-skeptic Tories believe last year’s referendum vote to quit the EU was driven by a desire to regain control over borders and immigration policy, and are convinced that failing to tighten the rules would invite a backlash from the public.
The leaked document proposed that low-skilled migrants from the EU should be able to come to the UK for at most two years, with a limit of three to five years for those with more skills. Employers would be required to do more to recruit British workers. London Mayor Sadiq Khan, from the main opposition Labour Party, said on Twitter that the document was “a blueprint on how to strangle our economy.”
However, May’s office insisted businesses need to step up. “We want employers to do more to improve the skills of British workers and equip them with those skills, going forward,” the PM’s spokesman, James Slack, told reporters.

“No ‘free lunch’ in Brexit talks with EU”
Bloomberg

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said there’s “no free lunch” in Brexit talks and that the reality of the divorce is sinking in among UK policy makers.
“Brexit was a decision that we think was wrong from every angle,” Schaeuble told a conference in Frankfurt. “But the Britons made it and now we must try to find solutions that will keep the damage to both sides as limited as possible.”
Schaeuble’s comments were the latest warning by European leaders after a round of Brexit talks in Brussels last week ended with UK and European Union negotiators deadlocked over the divorce bill. The EU’s deputy Brexit envoy told German lawmakers this week she’s skeptical that talks on a post-Brexit trade deal can start in October.
In Brussels, ambassadors of the 27 remaining EU countries met for only about five minutes to discuss Brexit, according to two participants.
“There is, I think, the beginning of a learning curve in the UK,” Schaeuble said. “We shouldn’t hamper the UK’s learning curve with provocation, but we should foster it with a clear, robust position, coupled with willingness to negotiate.” Schaeuble said Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, is handling the talks “very appropriately.”
After the last round of Brexit talks, Barnier said there can be no ambiguity about leaving the EU’s single market and “if that’s what’s been decided, there will be consequences.”