A post-Brexit immigration policy should include a deep cut in the number of low-skilled European migrants coming to work in Britain, with the priority given to only those willing to work antisocial hours, a leading centre-right thinktank has urged ministers.

A report from Policy Exchange says that Britain needs to “wean itself off low-skilled migration” and suggests that lower-skilled EU nationals who do come to work in Britain should be given temporary two-year work permits, be fingerprinted and issued biometric ID cards, and denied access to housing benefit or tax credits.

The author of the report, David Goodhart, claims that since lower-skilled EU migrants are in Britain mainly to earn money and many are without family responsibilities, it makes sense to give work permits to those prepared to work antisocial hours for all or some of their period working in Britain.

The proposal for a special “antisocial hours visa” brought immediate criticism from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants whose director, Chai Patel, said it was hard to think of a worse way to achieve integrated and cohesive communities than a “night-time only” visa system.

“To make living a parallel life to the rest of Britain a condition of coming here to live and work would be a self-destructive folly and a wasted opportunity to build an immigration system fit for the future,” he said.

Goodhart, the thinktank’s head of demography, immigration and integration, suggests there should be a customised “light touch” system of five-year work permits for EU professionals but a high level of continuity for groups such as students and tourists after Brexit.

The intervention comes as the home secretary, Amber Rudd, is due to publish her own long-delayed white paper on post-Brexit immigration policy.

The Policy Exchange paper carries echoes of the draft Home Office paper leaked to the Guardian in September, including the two-tier temporary work permit system and a rejection of any automatic right of new lower-skilled EU migrants who arrive to settle permanently in Britain.

As well as “bearing down” on low-skilled migration, the Policy Exchange paper proposes opening up three new temporary channels. These include extending the youth mobility visa – that allows 18-to-30-year-olds from countries such as Australia and New Zealand to work in the UK for up to two years – to young EU citizens, reviving the seasonal migrant workers’ scheme for agricultural workers, and extending “intra-company transfers”, which see 60,000 skilled staff a year work in Britain for short periods, to EU companies.

Goodhart proposes that the creation of this new temporary migrant workforce should be introduced alongside measures to wean British industries off their dependence on low-skilled EU workers.

He proposes that the migration advisory committee should publish data showing the proportion of non-UK nationals working in each major sector of the economy as part of moves to persuade British companies to become more attractive to UK workers by investing more in training and offering higher pay.

Goodhart said: “A Brexit without a clear end to free movement in its current form is neither possible nor desirable, as it was clearly one of the biggest single factors behind the Brexit vote.

“One of the problems with freedom of movement is that it has created a new category of resident: someone who is neither a temporary visitor, such as a tourist, nor someone who is making a permanent commitment to a new country in the manner of the traditional immigrant. Many of those taking advantage of free movement in recent years have enjoyed the rights of the latter with the attitude of the former,” he said.

“The government, in partnership with industry and the migration advisory committee, needs to set out how they will gradually reduce low skilled immigration from the EU, whilst maintaining a route for workers coming to do jobs with antisocial hours,” he added.