May has ‘lost’ Cabinet over migrant targets, says Osborne

‘She didn’t need to make this politically rash and economically illiterate move’

THE newspaper edited by George Osborne has claimed that Theresa May’s target of cutting net migration to tens of thousands is not backed by any senior figures in her Cabinet.

The London Evening Standard, yesterday published a scathing editorial which said the target of reducing net migration to tens of thousands is “economically illiterate”. It is the latest in a series of attacks by the newspaper edited by Mr Osborne, whom Mrs May sacked as chancellor.

Figures out yesterday showed that foreign-born workers accounted for all the net 385,000 rise in employment last year, while the number of Britishborn workers fell by 1,000.

The Office for National Statistics also disclosed that the number of Romanians and Bulgarians working in Britain has risen by 80,000 over the past year to 311,000. Net migration was 273,000.

The Evening Standard’s editorial said: “It remains a mystery why the Prime Minister has recommitted her party to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands a year. She didn’t need to make this politically rash and economically illiterate move. She was not the author of the pledge; David Cameron made it in opposition.” The editorial also suggested that the Government will not be able to control migration levels completely because the number of people arriving and leaving is subject to the “vagaries of the world economy”.

The editorial continued: “So you would assume that Mrs May would jump at the chance to bury the pledge.

“That’s what her Cabinet assumed; none of its senior members supports the pledge in private and all would be glad to see the back of something that has caused the Conservative Party such public grief.

“But no. Mrs May has kept digging.”