Is Theresa about to backtrack on foreign students?

FOREIGN students do not affect long-term immigration, Theresa May said yesterday, raising the prospect that they could be dropped from the official total.

The Prime Minister’s comments appear to mark a Uturn for her.

She was a staunch opponent of removing students from net immigration figures for years, putting her at odds with most of her Cabinet.

Mrs May has repeatedly warned that many foreign students fail to go home after their studies, and insisted removing them from immigration figures would undermine public confidence.

As home secretary, she led a crackdown on bogus colleges.

However, speaking on her visit to China, she said the tough measures she introduced meant students no longer had an impact on long-term immigration. Mrs May said she was reluctant to remove them from the figures while they were included in a UN definition of migrants that counts all those who move to a nation for more than 12 months.

But in a significant shift in tone, she suggested there was no other reason to continue including them because former abuses had been dealt with.

She added: ‘The reason the students have been in the numbers is because of the international definition of a migrant.

‘What’s important for us, when we looked at what happened to students in the UK, was a lot of abuse was taking place. Something like 900 colleges are no longer bringing in students because all too often they were being brought into work rather than for education.

‘So actually, if you’ve seen that abuse come out of the system, students... wash through the numbers. They don’t have a long-term impact on the numbers.’

The shift follows a private warning from Home Secretary Amber Rudd that the Government is likely to lose a Commons vote on the issue later this year when the new Immigration Bill comes to Parliament.

Mrs May is also under pressure to change her position from senior Cabinet members including Miss Rudd, Chancellor Philip Hammond,

‘They don’t have a long-term impact’

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Business Secretary Greg Clark.

According to official data, annual net migration of international students is 76,000 – around a third of the 250,000 annual total. Removing them would make it far easier to hit the Tory target of cutting the total below 100,000, but would risk accusations of fiddling the figures.

Universities say foreign students bring almost £11billion into the economy and create 170,000 jobs.

But in 2015, when she was home secretary, Mrs May warned non-EU students numbers could hit 600,000 a year by 2020 if left unchecked.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has backed Brexit minister Steve Baker, saying he should keep his job after he was forced to apologise to Parliament for airing ‘conspiracy theories’. He had claimed the boss of a think-tank told him that Treas- ury civil servants were deliberately trying to undermine Brexit.

A recording released by Charles Grant, of the Centre for European Reform, showed Mr Baker’s account of his comments was wrong.

Asked if he would be fired, Mrs May said: ‘No. The ministerial code says the minister should take the earliest opportunity to amend the record given to Parliament and apologise to Parliament. He will do that.’

A Downing Street spokesman said No10 considered the matter closed.

THE Mail is mystified by this week’s rumblings of Tory rebellion against Theresa May. Just where do her critics believe she is failing? More to the point, who do they think would do her job better?

Certainly, the 2017 election was a serious miscalculation, while last month’s botched reshuffle left an unfortunate impression of weakness. And, yes, as even her admirers must admit, her understated leadership style will never set the Thames on fire.

But look at what she has achieved – and is still achieving. Under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, she has held together a Cabinet representing every Tory faction, from the timid and frankly treacherous bean-counter Philip Hammond to the swashbuckling Boris Johnson.

At the same time, the economy is doing remarkably well (not that you’d know it from the BBC’s coverage), with employment at a record high, exports and manufacturing output up and order books at their strongest for 30 years. For good measure, the public finances – though still hugely vulnerable – are in better shape than anyone dared predict.

As for the Brexit negotiations, who could have believed six months ago that they would have progressed as far as they have, with the first stage settled and trade talks resuming on Monday?

Which brings us to the claim by Brexiteers that Mrs May is planning a sell-out that will keep us members of the EU in all but name. One question: Where is their evidence?

True, the pusillanimous Mr Hammond’s remark that any divergence from Brussels would be ‘very modest’ was deeply unhelpful – and Leavers were right to raise the alarm.

They were justly angry, too, over Treasury officials’ attempt to revive Project Fear, with selective leaks from a flawed study purporting to see 15 years into the future.

But it’s not the Chancellor – still less the Remainer Civil Service – who will decide our relationship with the EU. It’s the Prime Minister. And it is surely worth noting that she slapped Mr Hammond down, making him renew his commitment to pulling out of the single market and customs union.

What’s more, Mrs May has endlessly repeated that the Brexit she’s determined to deliver will give us back control of our laws, borders and money, with the right to strike trade deals with any country we choose. That hardly sounds like a sell-out.

Indeed, this week she matched action to her words. While unelected, unaccountable peers raged against Brexit – and Tories plotted rebellion in the Westminster bubble – she was on a highly successful trade trip to China, quietly laying the foundations for a prosperous future after withdrawal.

And make no mistake. It’s in vast markets such as China, India and the US – where British brands and know-how are hugely respected – that the real opportunities lie. Indeed, the IMF predicts that 90 per cent of the world’s growth over the next decade will be outside the EU.

Whatever happens, there can be no going back on Brexit now. As the Mail observed this week, it would make us the laughingstock of the world, putting us utterly at the mercy of Brussels, with all influence gone.

At this crucial juncture in our history, what Tory in his right mind would plunge the party into a suicidally divisive leadership contest that could only stall the talks, rock the economy – and raise the terrifying prospect of a Marxist in No 10? THIS paper welcomes signs that the Prime Minister may rethink her insistence on including foreign students in the migration figures. Yes, we must keep up the pressure on abuses by bogus colleges and graduates who stay on illegally. But when the system works properly, with roughly equal numbers arriving and leaving, foreign students are a great asset to our world- class universities and to Britain’s soft power on the international stage.