A strategic advisor who formerly worked on Brexit negotiations claims that the launch of an exclusive UK visa for Hong Kong nationals could be ‘the making of post-Brexit Britain’. Johnny Luk told Al Jazeera that the UK has a ‘unique opportunity to demonstrate how it can lead on immigration policy’.
Since the turn of the year, UK immigration has fundamentally shifted. For some it has changed in way that not many people would have predicted. According to Luk, the UK was expected to ‘pull up the drawbridge and dramatically tighten’ its immigration policy in the post-Brexit era.
This perception stemmed from Britain’s outright rejection of the EU’s principle of free movement. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic has also shutdown Britain’s borders in an unthinkable way for months. However, according to Luk, Brexit and the coronavirus mask what the UK is truly thinking about immigration in the long-term.