Sam Frederick Scott

This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘The entanglement of employers and political elites in migration policymaking: the case of Brexit and the revival of UK horticulture’s guestworker scheme’.

The UK has faced considerable labour shortages following the Brexit vote and the Covid-19 pandemic. Horticulture is one sector that has been particularly vulnerable, with fears of crops being left to rot in the fields commonly aired. In a new Evidence and Policy research article I look at the public pressure employers put on government, and indeed were invited to put on government, as post-Brexit migration policy emerged. I conclude that, in the case of horticulture, migration policy was made through the intimate entanglement of employers and political elites and that employers got what they wanted: a new seasonal guest worker visa scheme. This new scheme is unprecedented in its scale (up to 40,000 workers) and as broad as possible in scope (potentially global). However, despite this, concerns still remain over continued harvest labour shortages in 2022 and beyond.