THE ROW OVER IMMIGRATION IS NOT GOING AWAY

THERESA May’s speechwriting team are finding preparations for her Tory conference address next month more challenging than ever. The Prime Minister is keen to deliver a belter after last year’s effort was ruined by a prankster, a cough and a collapsing backdrop. “I can’t remember what number draft we’ve got to,” Mrs May told me when I asked her about progress on the speech during a visit to Downing Street to interview her last Tuesday.

Immigration is expected to be one of the key themes of the address. Those passages are proving to be particularly tricky to write because ministers are still squabbling over how the country’s border controls should operate after Brexit.

Cabinet ministers are due to wrestle with the issue at a meeting in Downing Street on Monday. “It’s likely to be a pretty heated debate,” said one Whitehall source. A Government “white paper” policy document setting out the new system is scheduled to be released next month after being repeatedly postponed over the past 18 months due to the lack of agreement. Chancellor Philip Hammond and Business Secretary Greg Clark have been pressing for as much free movement for EU citizens as possible. The Prime Minister and Home Secretary Sajid Javid argue that the issue was so decisive to the referendum vote to quit the EU that tougher curbs are needed.

Mrs May was uncompromising on the issue in a Tory conference speech as Home Secretary in 2015. “When immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it’s impossible to build a cohesive society,” she said. With the Government white paper, she has the opportunity to deliver on that tough rhetoric.

But with her Brexit plan in danger of unravelling following the rejection of her proposals at this week’s EU summit in Salzburg, pro-Brussels ministers are ready to seize the moment in their attempt to keep the free movement rules virtually unchanged.

The coming immigration row could make the Cabinet bust-up over the “Chequers” Brexit proposals, which led to the resignations of Boris Johnson and David Davis, look like a minor disagreement in comparison.