Sir Rocco Forte, the founder of luxury hotel chain Rocco Forte, has lambasted Reform UK’s plan to impose an employer immigration tax.
Party leader Richard Tice unveiled the policy at a press conference yesterday as a means to heal Britain from its “addiction to cheap overseas labour”.
He said: “This drug is being pushed on every street corner by the Labour Party and the Tories.”
Speaking on GB News, Forte said migrant crisis failures are the Government’s burden to bear but Reform’s plan is effectively punishing businesses.
Rocco Forte, who is considering voting for Reform, questioned Richard Tice
GB NEWS
“I like a lot of what Reform’s approach is to dealing with the economy, but this is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard”, he said.
“It’s nothing to do with businesses, it’s government not controlling immigration.
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Richard Tice made the announcement at a press conference
Reform UK
Rocco Forte
GB NEWS
“Clearly it’s a policy of the current government to allow two and a half million people to come into this country over the past two years when they have complete control over their borders.
“We can do anything we want with our borders, we can exclude people from coming here, immigration itself is not a bad thing, it’s the right kind of immigration we want, not the wrong kind.
“What we have seen over the last two and a half years is the complete wrong kind of immigration.”
The Reform leader agreed with some of the points put forward by Forte, but felt the need to train up economically inactive people from the UK overrides the need to get migrants into work.
He said: “The two points that Rocco Forte quite rightly makes there is that on Government immigration policy, we’ve had mass immigration over the past few years and it’s been a complete disaster.
“It’s been too low-skilled. I agree with him on that. But we have over nine million economically inactive people in the UK and we have got to get those people back into work.
“We are giving businesses the choice. If the business want to employ migrants then that’s their choice, but there has to be a cost.
“It does, without question, have a depressing effect on the local wages.”
