Divisions have appeared in the Conservative party after Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced plans to force companies to name the foreign workers they employ at the party conference in Birmingham.
Rudd’s controversial policy announcement overshadowed Theresa May’s first conference as leader of the party, with many calling the policy xenophobic and a symptom of the UK becoming more insular in the wake of the Brexit vote in June.
Rudd’s brother had publicly attacked the plan as a “denigration of foreign workers“, and members of UKIP had called it “a step too far“.
Writing in the Sunday Times, former Cameron aide Steve Hilton described the plan as “foreign working shaming” and asked “Why not announce that foreign workers will have numbers tattooed on their forearms?”
Now, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, has said that the policy is “not going to happen“, with firms only to be asked for the overall number of foreign workers so that the government could identify any skills gap. However, neither Amber Rudd or former Home Secretary Theresa May have denied the policy.
The plan to name and shame companies with foreign workers is just one of a number of symptoms of the current Conservative Party’s “little England” mentality. Earlier this week, government officials told the London School of Economics (LSE) that it would not accept advice from academics that did not hold UK passports, no matter what their credentials.
