With exactly four weeks to the day to the US Presidential election and controversy reaching fever pitch, it seems like a distant memory back to 2008 with the positive message of change that resonated throughout that campaign.  Who will ever forget Obama’s slogan, ‘change we can believe in’ and the chant ‘yes we can’?  It was the first campaign to mobilise and motivate people through social media, and with the pace with which that took off the world is a now a very different place.

Change is the sort of word that that can trip off people’s tongue’s without any real meaning.  Politician’s use it at will.  Back in 2008 there was something new, fresh, exciting about the word, there was meaning behind it with clearly set out goals.  But now it’s as dull as dishwater, the majority of political references to change are at best ambiguous.   It’s interesting this time that the media references to change within the US election are more about how many times policy has been altered and in the case of Trump its 126 policy shifts on 21 major issues, according to US broadcaster NBC.

Many see the exponential rise of Trump as an example of the voice of positive change increasingly being drowned out by that of intolerance and extremism.  All over the world political opinion has been hardening. As Brendan Cox put it there has been ‘a coarsening’ and it is coming from the right, from the centre as well as from the left.  Language is a powerful and an emotive tool but when used in an irresponsible way it has maleficent consequences.   While we have seen the impact of that over many years in Northern Ireland the Brexit process and its leaders appear to have learned little from our plight.  Whether we like it or not, Brexit represents real change and at the Tory conference last week, its fallout placed the business community under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Would you be surprised if Collins and Hayes, the furniture manufacturing business that Home Secretary Amber Rudd cited as being an example of a company that relied too heavily on overseas staff was attacked or its premises damaged?   I sincerely hope I’m not tempting fate, but I wouldn’t. Rudd’s proposal’s, outlined to the rousing faithful at Tory conference, to force companies to disclose how many foreign workers they employ would not only disregard the skills needs’ and recruitment environment of businesses but it rightly has opponents, commentators and the public alike asking, how is this anything other than xenophobic?  Leaving the issue of a hard or soft Brexit aside the business sector has been forthright in its criticism of Rudd’s proposal and pending consultation, outlining that foreign workers fill gaps in skills that UK national workers could not provide.   Throughout the whole Brexit process there has not been nearly enough said about the vital role that foreign workers play in the UK economy.  People, politicians and elements of the business community have been afraid to do so!

So what of Rudd’s proposal? A term in the media that was used to refer to this ludicrous policy was ‘name and shame’.  What can be derived from combining ‘name and shame’ and a company that employs Polish or Romanian or Irish or any other nationality?  What are we telling society, what are we teaching our children and how will we train the next generation of business leaders?  That foreign is futile?  There is no denying that many in UK society want a solution to immigration issues, but the current approach, and mind–set, is deeply flawed. 

Availability of key skills is at a premium.  A report by the CBI in June of this year stated that 69% of employers were concerned about not being able to find enough highly skilled staff, compared with 55% in 2015.  So the skills gap is widening and instead of whole heartedly trying to address the issue the Tories fuel a five day ‘foreign worker name and shame register’ debate?  Rudd’s own brother, Roland Rudd, Chairman and founder of Finsbury the London based financial PR and lobbying company was heavily critical of the proposal.

When this policy arose last week it was a keen topic of conversation within our office, the main question being when would a senior Tory figure stand up and be counted and say enough, this should not go to consultation.  The first figure of real note, albeit not involved in this government, was Steve Hilton former adviser to David Cameron who on Sunday described it as ‘divisive, repugnant and insanely bureaucratic’.  He said it was worse than Trump’s suggestion that Muslims should be banned from the US.  Following this the ‘qualifications’ of the policy started to roll in.  I watched in bemusement as Education Secretary Justine Greening told ITV’s ‘Peston On Sunday’ that it was about collecting information regarding skills shortages, that the data would not be published and there would be no naming and shaming.  Given the sensitive nature of what was being proposed, why had Amber Rudd not been absolutely transparent this day last week during her speech?  Weighting in behind was Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon, saying that companies would simply have to report their numbers. 

Is it any wonder that the Tories have been described as being in disarray over this newly cobbled together policy?  Where would it end? Would the health and education systems be included at some point? Hospitals reporting the number of foreign nurses and doctors and other health workers that the NHS is so dependent on or schools and universities, outlining the number of foreign academics?

If this was a misunderstanding as opposed to a U turn, as they have suggested, why did it take five days to leave such a toxic assessment to fester?  Gaining knowledge on the training requirements of local indigenous people is vital and much needed for economic growth but this whole approach be it a public or private declaration on foreign workers has not been good for business and it is definitely not good for society.  The Tories should be looking at a policy that can better address the growing culture of intolerance and hatred and one that ensures that foreign workers especially the low skilled are treated equally in all facets of society, including employment. 

I come back to my opening comments, language and in this case policy can be emotive and it does have consequences.  Amber Rudd would do well to reflect on that and consider what one of the greatest political figures of all time, said about change, ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world’, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.  The societal fallout from Brexit and coarsening will continue unless we start to see the sort of passionate, meaningful, positive and inclusive change that the outgoing President outlined in his campaign in 2008.