As of the Friday (18th March 2016), the British government and their department of UK Visas and Immigration have implemented an annual fee increase.
The biggest concern I have is that they have implemented a 25% increase on visas that grant working and settlement rights in the UK to non-EU migrants. Please note that not all UK visas are going up 25%. Only some UK visas that grant working and settlement rights have been affected. Visitor and Student visas have been unaffected.
This recent increase is dramatically higher than the average 3% that the UK government uses to “balance inflation”.
Understanding UK visas
To make sure we are all on the same page here, South Africans are defined as non-EU (ie non-European Union members) and require prior permission to enter the UK. This permission is given in the form of a UK visa. 
There are different types of UK visas, each granting different types of permission to be in the UK.
The British government implemented a complex visa system which in turn has a fairly high administration cost to implement, monitor and control. Rather than making their own tax payers bear the burden of the cost of administration, the UK government puts the cost burden on perspective travellers. Therefore, the British government justifies their requested visa cost based on their expected administration. That is the picture that the UK government likes to paint.
Unusual Changes
Another aspect that really stands out of this sudden higher change in fees is the fact that it was implemented 3 weeks before the annual fee adjustments. For the past 5 years, whilst the same Prime Minister (David Cameron) has been in power, the UK government have consistently only implement visa fee increases on the 6th April annually.
This year however a short notice period was given (which in turn has made this a “sudden” change). In my opinion, the suddenness/short notice period of this change has not allowed the media or the public time to react. Further to this, the fee increase, which does happen once a year, strangely needed to be implemented 3 weeks prior to its usual 6 April implementation. It really begs the question, what is the rush?
I therefore am trying to bring to my readers attention that this recent change in visa fees has made two unusual movements that stand out to me. The first is the much higher visa fee increase (25% on working and settlement rights as opposed to the standard 3%) and the second unusual movement is the urgency to implement the fee increase 3 weeks sooner (which breaks their consistency of a standard operating procedure).
What about the non-EU first world countries?
Another aspect of the present UK immigration system, which I believe David Cameron is overlooking and has been doing so since 2010 when he begun to implemented strict non-EU immigration policies, is that he is slowing the trade with other first world countries.
In my opinion he is so fixated on closing the UK borders, first focusing his attention on non-EU members and now focusing on EU members, that he is he not taking consequences into consideration.
River Analogy
Image a flowing river, which brings life to a foreign land. The appointed governor of the people declares that they need to control the flow of the water so that they never experience a flood. The people happily believe that this control can help them so that they gladly follow the suggestion.
In this analogy, what I find has happened is that David Cameron has been using all his resources to stop one half of the river. Non-EU migrants. One could view them as half the side of the river – possibly with the side with the strongest current.
David Cameron has now stop that flow. Non-EU migrant numbers are dramatically less.
What has happened though is that the other half of the river, EU migrants, which used to be the slower side, has now increases its flow. EU migrants are flowing in in record numbers.
So, in trying to protect his people, he has only caused more mess than good. The part of the river which is now flowing strongly is causing soil erosion. What I mean by this is that he is now attracting low skillsets to enter his work force. The workforce that David Cameron was trying to protect is now being flooded with competition.
David Cameron has successfully disrupted the flow of strong work force and now has a problem of unskilled EU workers flooding in.
In hind sight, I truly believe if David Cameron was offered a time machine, giving him the opportunity to go back and redo his political career, I would like to believe that he would have first made sure that he can control the EU side of the river before he closed the non-EU side. Being able to close both sides of the river at the same time is the only way one can really control the flow of the river.
Two hands of immigration policy
From the present UK immigration policies, I have witnessed on the one hand, the recent visa fee increase serves to deter us (hard working South Africans) from wanting to go to their country. Well its meant to deter us.
The means that a fee increase from the British government seems to be continuing on their path of intent to stop migrants wanting to relocate to their country.
I assume that they are working on the basic economics theory that as price increases that the demand will also decrease (perhaps I am just over analysing this aspect though).
Then on the other hand, the Tier 2 point based system (current UK work permit) serves to deter UK employer from wanting to employ nationals from outside of the EU. Holding UK employers accountable for non-EU immigration nationals and their compliance of the ever changing rulings is time consuming (and increases the UK employers risk of breaching immigration rules).
To think that some South Africans complain about BEE policies and how they do not actually help the masses initially (only a select few), when compared to the UK’s work permit system (Tier 2 visa) – their system is very flawed (literally trying to stop their local businesses from wanting to grow with international work force).
British nationals are being punished by a one way visa system
To me what is most interesting to see is that David Cameron has implemented visa rules that negatively impact his fellow British nationals. British nationals that temporarily leave the UK (for their own international career experience or to stretch out their retirement funding) are often punished upon their intent to return. Those British nationals who work or live abroad and do not fall in love with foreign culture and foreign nationals are not impacted.
Those British nationals who do experience love abroad are the ones punished. Punished by the non-EU laws in place. I have come across many retired British nationals in SA who do not qualify to bring their SA partners with them. The British national themselves (alone) can easily go back. They just have to leave their loved ones behind. Hence my conclusion is that the current legislation is often a one way ticket for British nationals. If you go abroad and find happiness, trying to go back to share that happiness in your home country is not easy.
Now you might be thinking that I am over exaggerating this ruling. If you do, let me quickly reveal the Freedom of movement for workers in the European Union treaty.
This EU treaty serves to confirm that the only aspect holding David Cameron from meeting his promise and from allowing him to have complete control over the UK border is the current European Union agreement that the UK government has committed too.
EU freedom of movement treaty explained
The treaty was drawn up to give Europeans freedom of movement between each of the participating EU countries. There are currently 28 participating EU countries can freely travel into each other countries (without needing visas). The agreement also allows non-EU dependents (ie South Africans) to join their EU spouses – free of charge- to also experience freedom of movement in the EU.
From the start though, the British government complicated their involvement in the EU, which is their way of trying to negotiating a better deal for themselves (similar to the way the UK did not join the Euro currency). The complicated UK terms of EU membership is why South Africans with Schengen visas still require a separate UK visa when travelling to the UK (and vice versa). The Schengen visa should actually give us permission to visit the UK (but it doesn’t).
The current EU treaty though specifies that South Africans married to EU nationals other than British (so French or German nationals for example) can freely enter the UK with their EU spouse. Let me emphasize two aspects here. The first is that South Africans married to EU members other than British get a free visitor visa. It’s called the EEA Family Permit. As opposed to South Africans married to British nationals, who have to pay for UK standard visitor visas.
In exchange, South Africans married to British nationals can only get free Schengen visas. There is no benefit for South Africans married to British nationals when wanting to go to the UK. This hopefully re-enforces my statement that the current legislation punishes British nationals.
The current visa system makes better provision for South Africans to marry other EU passport holders (other than British) if they want to relocate to the UK.
The biggest punishment that British nationals face is when wanting to permanently relocate back to the UK with their foreign (non-EU) partner.
South Africans that marry a British national are faced with far more expensive and challenging visa requirements than South Africans that marry Dutch nationals – or any other EU nationals (when wanting to emigrate to the UK). Therefore the current spousal visa system is more expensive and has a higher risk of visa refusal – thanks to the UK governments complex visa system.
Hence I conclude that at present David Cameron is punishing his own nationals and that the UK’s current EU membership forces him to freely allow EU nationals into his country (against his will).
This begs the question that one would expect that being married to a British national would offer more benefits (as opposed to the restrictions) than what it currently does?
This ends off my perspective on the present UK immigration legislation. Now that we have taken the past into consideration. Next I have put together my projections for what I believe is about to happen in the future and how it will impact South Africans wanting to relocate to the UK.