Senior Tory Brexiteer George Eustice admits UK needs more EU workers

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A Conservative Brexit leader has admitted the UK needs more EU workers to ease labor shortages and tackle the coronavirus crisis. inflation.

Former environment secretary George Eustice has called on Rishi Sunak to negotiate bilateral agreements with European countries offering work visas for young people.

He has denounced the PM over the resulting labor shortages and inflationary pressures, saying they were not caused by Brexit, but by 'the failure of our post immigration policy -Brexit".

And Mr Eustice challenged Mr Sunak on the "flaws" of the current "so-called skills-based immigration system", adding that the policy does not match to the needs of the economy.

Although he did not call for a return to freedom of movement between the UK and the EU, Mr Eustice urged Mr Sunak to "rekindle this post-Brexit friendship with our European neighbours".

The former minister's comments will be seen as an admission of the failings of the government's post-Brexit immigration policy. They come amid growing unease among Tory MPs over Brexit failures, and as senior Tory Tobias Ellwood has called for Britain to join the single market.

Mr. Eustic told The Observer: "We allow people deemed competent such as lawyers, insolvency practitioners, museum agents, even disc jockeys, when we don't have no shortages in these sectors.

"But we don't allow people to come and work in sectors like the food industry, even though there are serious labor shortages in these sectors, which contributes to inflation.

"So that's the big problem. My proposal is that we start bilateral negotiations with EU member states, starting with countries like Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic States, and that we eventually expand them to the whole of the EU, in order to establish a reciprocal visa regime for youth mobility.”

Mr Eustice said the deals should allow EU citizens under 35 to live and work in the UK for two years, while UK citizens would be allowed to do the same in EU member states EU with which agreements have been concluded.

His intervention is the latest sign of a split within t...