Ruth in challenge to May over pledge on migration cuts
RUTH Davidson has questioned a key Tory pledge and called on the Prime Minister to reconsider her promise to cut net migration to less than 100,000 a year.
The Scottish Conservative leader said it was time for her party to launch a ‘meaningful’ and ‘mature’ discussion on immigration.
And in her latest intervention Miss Davidson appeared to contradict Theresa May by arguing that overseas students should be moved from the net migration figures.
Her challenge came as it emerged migrants had made 30,000 attempts to reach Britain from Calais this year despite costly security measures.
The Tories first pledged to cut net migrations to tens of thousands in 2010 – but this has never been met.
Yesterday, Miss Davidson said the ‘big reset button’ of Brexit should make it easier to achieve in theory, but added: ‘We have to ask whether the target continues to be the right one?’
Citing low unemployment levels, she said the potential for growth was ‘facing ever greater limitations’.
The intervention on Brexit from Miss Davidson is the most recent following the success of the Tories in Scotland during the General Election.
Miss Davidson has been hailed as the ‘heroine’ of the party, with senior party members claiming she should be given a seat in the Prime Minister’s Cabinet.
Writing in the Telegraph yesterday, she also highlighted the ‘dependency ratio’, pointing out that while the number of pensioners north of the Border is expected to rise by 28 per cent over the next 25 years, the number of workers is set to rise by only 1 per cent.
Miss Davidson said that the ‘British Government has failed to hit its self-imposed “tens of thousands” target in any year’. She said: ‘Brexit is a big reset button and should – in theory – make that much easier to do so. But we have to ask whether the target continues to be the right one?
‘Immigration has changed Britain hugely. I believe it has changed it for the better, but undoubtedly there are people that feel that they have been left behind. Let’s treat the British public like the grown-ups they are and have the mature conversation we need.’
Responding to Miss Davidson last night Labour’s shadow Scotland Office minister Paul Sweeney said: ‘The Tories are in open warfare and these comments from Ruth Davidson show just how deep the splits in the party run.
‘When the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, who defends abhorrent policies such as the rape clause, tells Theresa May that she needs to think again, then you know just how wrong the Prime Minister is.’
It emerged yesterday that the French interior ministry had so far this year logged 17,867 efforts to break into the fortified zone around the port and Channel Tunnel.
Asylum seekers also tried 12,349 times to stow away on UK-bound lorries. The figures come nearly a year after the closure of the notorious Jungle migrant camp in Calais – raising fears of another shantytown springing up there.
Charlie Elphicke, Tory MP for Dover and Deal, last night urged French president Emmanuel Macron to get a grip on the situation. ‘The shocking figures underline the importance of keeping the border between Dover and Calais strong, safe and secure,’ he said.
A direct comparison with figures from last year is not available. But previous estimates from the French authorities suggested there were between 25,000 and 28,000 attempts to breach border security around Calais from January to August 2016.
All the statistics relate to individual attempts to find a way into Britain and may represent multiple efforts by the same people.
A spokesman for Eurotunnel insisted last night that its security arrangements were ‘robust’.
Mr Macron has promised to ensure no migrants are on the streets by the end of the year, pledging to provide them with ‘dignified’ housing. His government has bought 62 cheap hotels across the country from the Formule 1 chain and is turning them into shelters for 6,000 people.
Interior minister Gerard Collomb said on Sunday that France did not ‘want to repeat past experiences, where we started with a centre of 400 people and finished at 8,000’.