For all our politicians’ tough talk on curbing immigration, one aspect of the visa merry-go-round – those only accessible to the super-rich – continues to elude proper scrutiny. The UK’s Tier 1 Investor visa, also known as the ‘Golden Visa’, has provided instant access to Britain for over 11,000 of the world’s 1% since 2008. While successive UK governments have promised to drastically reduce migration numbers, the global elite has been encouraged to purchase their UK residencies through a commitment to invest a minimum of £2 million in British business. For the wealthy, as ever, the regulation and bureaucracy that bind ordinary people does not apply. 

Every obstacle the Home Office has placed between a migrant and British citizenship can, for the right price, be pushed aside. A Tier 1 applicant with enough capital requires neither a job offer nor a sponsor in order to fast track their claim. Only their bank balance matters, and more specifically their ability to invest the required fortune shortly after they gain access. Applicants through slower channels need to pass an English proficiency test and provide evidence of sufficient maintenance funds – neither of these stipulations applies to the hallowed upper Tier. 

In response to criticism of this system in recent years, the government announced in March 2019 a number of tweaks, most of them superficial, which have had little to no impact on its essential unfairness. Indeed, the reform’s headline change – the length of time an investor must have held funds in their accounts prior to investing them in the UK economy – drew attacks from campaigns against corruption. After all, for the super-rich, extending the old 90-day requirement to a period of two years equates to little more than an irritant, and is far from a sincere attempt to level the migration playing field.     

Without access to vast amounts of disposable currency, the majority of those seeking British citizenship – or even hoping to reunite with their spouse – are forced to navigate an evermore lengthy and arduous process. Even workers classified as ‘skilled’ currently face a long list of restrictive criteria designed to make entering and working in the country as difficult as possible. At one end of the scale, the Windrush scandal saw hundreds of British citizens wrongfully deported after helping to rebuild the country’s ravaged post-war economy. At the other, the Golden Visa system is consistently misappropriated in clear view of a Home Office that continues to ignore its abuses. When stories of Tier 1-related corruption began to break, the government responded in December 2018 by suspending the route, only to retract this suspension shortly afterwards and issue several hollow statements about toughening up surrounding regulation.  

In July, a joint expose by the Sunday Times and Channel 4 identified multiple loopholes that rich investors continue to exploit, making a mockery of the government’s supposed clampdown. The message this sends to the world is disheartening: that those who accumulate gigantic wealth, no matter how, are deserving of different and better treatment than normal law-abiding people. And while boosting the domestic economy this way may sound like a good idea, such schemes to attract the rich are typically myopic, overlooking as they do the long-lasting social consequences of promulgating vast inequality.     

Sadly, these problems don’t end with the tarnished Investor visa. Another branch of the UK’s Tier 1 points-based system is the Entrepreneur visa, a counterpart to the Investor visa and another fundamentally elitist construction prone, and almost inviting of, corruption. Rebranded as the Innovator visa earlier this year, the Entrepreneur visa recently made headlines due to its role in the nepotism scandal enveloping the Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Dating back to his tenure as Mayor of London, the newspapers reported how Mr. Johnson had used his substantial clout to assist Jennifer Arcuri, an American in London studying an MBA before launching Innotech, her own business start-up. 

Details of the case appear damning. Back in 2013 Mr. Johnson was responsible for UK Trade and Investment, an organization that paid Innotech grants totaling £15,000 as part of the Sirius scheme supporting visa applications for entrepreneurs looking to launch firms in the UK. In the years since 2013, over £125,000 of public money has been diverted into businesses run by Ms. Arcuri, who was also invited on several trade missions led by Mr. Johnson. The evidence in this case suggests that Ms. Arcuri’s personal relationship with Mr. Johnson was the deciding factor in the success of her application for an Entrepreneur visa, and the subsequent levels of funding her ventures secured. 

The legacy of Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment’ is an immigration system that only works for the most wealthy and well-connected individuals. It has bred inherent discrimination realised most visibly in the visa demands made of arriving migrants. Anyone with an Investor visa is automatically eligible for British citizenship after only three years in the UK, as long as they stump up £10 million in domestic investment. This is unashamed elitism, with there existing no other fast track to citizenship. The average applicant needs to have lived at least half a decade here before they qualify to be considered for indefinite right to remain, with another year on top before they can file for citizenship.   

It is clear that preferential bias and elitist values pervade our country’s immigration policy. While ordinary people are subject to increasingly prolonged procedures, these rigorous checks are simply brushed aside for anyone with a fat enough cheque-book. This inequality threatens the fabric of our society and undermines fatally the aspirationalist ideologies of a rampant capitalism that preaches how anyone, from anywhere, can succeed on the basis of diligence and honesty alone. As a country we must realize that our claims to be meritocratic are seriously undermined when governments we elect welcome only the golden few through our doors. In an age of division and weakening faith in democracy, we must take a long hard look at the Golden Visa – and see it for the immigration scandal it represents. 

Phil Nash is a correspondent for the Immigration Advice Service, an organisation of UK immigration solicitors providing legal support for those looking to migrate to the UK