Those Home Office letters

Theresa May and officials have dismissed them as a mistake, but I believe the reactionary Home Office civil servants knew exactly what they were doing. The letters* were akin to the "red frighteners" sent by unscrupulous debt collecting agencies. The agencies knew that their threats have no legal standing, but just enough recipients were cowed into paying up, often for money they do not owe. So it is with this Home Office exercise, adding just a few more emigrants to the total needed to meet the Conservatives' arbitrary migration target, and never mind the consequences for the economy or the quality of academic life of the UK.

* 100 letters were sent to EU nationals living in the UK; informing them that they have one month to leave the country, or they will be detained