by John Brian Shannon | September 8, 2016

One of two main reasons 17 million Britons gave for voting Brexit was widespread dissatisfaction over the unprecedented immigration levels of recent years.

The question in the UK today is how to go about addressing future immigration loads. I’m looking forward to some mature discussion about the kind of Britain citizens want to live in over the coming years.

Do we want to be a minority in our own country?

That’s a fair question and there are examples of countries where the native population represents only 10% of the total population, while the other 90% are expat workers and retirees.

The thriving Middle Eastern state of Qatar is one such example. Apart from the extraordinarily wealthy Qatar Royal Family and the other native Qataris, everyone else in the country (which represent some 90% of the total population of Qatar) hails from other countries and are often found working for relatively menial wages. Although compared to their home countries, the money they earn in Qatar would be considered exceptional remuneration — and much of their hard-earned wages are sent to their families abroad.

Foreign Remittances

Some south Asian economies receive a significant GDP boost from these so-called ‘foreign remittances’ which is the money that expat workers send home to their families.

Countries like Thailand receive 6% of domestic GDP from such foreign remittances. Each pound sterling that leaves the UK in the form of foreign remittances to family members, is one pound sterling that is added to Thailand’s GDP, and is one pound that will never return to the UK. Some areas of Somalia receive 70% of their GDP from family members working in Britain and in other countries.

The UK has hundreds of thousands of foreign workers from many nations who send home much of the wages they’ve earned, totalling millions of pounds sterling per month.

Note: Personal transfers described above are in addition to the almost 1 percent of GDP (0.71%) that Britain spends on developing nations in the form of government-to-government foreign aid — which means that a minimum of 1.5% of British GDP (including such foreign remittances) is leaving the country every year to assist people in developing nations. Most donor nations contribute much less than 1% of GDP (including foreign remittances) to developing countries. The EU donor average is 0.47% for example.

• Introduction To Remittances (Investopedia)
• Remittances: Funds for the Folks Back Home (IMF)
• Forget foreign aid: British migrants send £11 BILLION back to other countries in a YEAR (The Express)

Obviously, there are many foreign workers who are an asset to Britain and work in occupations that native Britons avoid, usually on account of the low pay involved. And although they send their wages abroad, many of these foreign workers still represent a real, net benefit to Britain.

Therefore, the question becomes; Who should stay and who should go?

Let’s have one standard that covers both present and future immigration and offer all of those people British citizenship after one-year of residency in Britain. (Assuming they don’t commit any criminal act during that probationary period)

Who should stay?

Category I: Professors, Doctors, MBA’s, and other degrees
Category II: Highly skilled workers
Category III: Honourably served in the UK military
Category IV: Immediate family of any of the above
Category V: Workers in segments where there are more jobs available, than British citizen applicants

Who should go?

Any foreigner who commits a crime in the UK should be deported, forthwith, and with no chance of ever returning to Britain. No exceptions except by Royal Pardon.

Making people Part of the Solution, instead of Part of the Problem

In this way, and over time, Britain will accrue the highest concentration of highly educated and highly motivated people, allowing it to prosper as never before, while (continuously) clearing the country of foreign criminal elements.

And all of this will work very well in conjunction with a better British education system — an education system that features tuition-free university for British citizens and continually adjusts to Build a Better Britain.