Johnson refuses to set immigration target
In the final head-to-head, Hunt pledges tough curbs on migrants, while both say Irish backstop is dead
Boris Johnson has refused to commit to bringing down net immigration after Brexit if he becomes prime minister, as he and Jeremy Hunt went head-to-head in the final debate of the leadership contest. Mr Johnson said he was not “going to get into a numbers game” when asked how he would bring down net immigration, while Mr Hunt said he recognised that many of the 17.4million people who voted for Brexit expected immigration to come down after Britain leaves the EU.
‘The backstop as it is is dead. I don’t think tweaking it with a time limit will do the trick’
BORIS JOHNSON has refused to commit to bringing down net immigration after Brexit if he becomes prime minister, as he and Jeremy Hunt went headto-head in the final debate of the leadership contest.
Mr Johnson, the front-runner to win the race to be Tory leader in a week’s time, said he was not “going to get into a numbers game” when asked how he would bring down net immigration.
The comments are likely to add to concerns among Tories that Mr Johnson – whose politics are socially liberal – will not bear down on immigration numbers if he gets the keys to No10.
In contrast Mr Hunt said that many of the 17.4million people who voted to take the UK out of the EU in 2016 expected immigration to come down after Britain leaves the EU.
Mr Hunt said: “People would think we were betraying the spirit of that Brexit referendum if we didn’t find a way of bringing down overall numbers.”
Mr Hunt and Mr Johnson both said that the Northern Ireland backstop in the Government’s treaty to take the UK out of the EU was dead and ruled out adding a five-year time limit to it to get it past MPS. Mr Johnson said: “No to time limits or unilateral escape hatches, or elaborate devices, codicils that you could apply to the backstop. It has been devised by this country as an instrument of our own incarceration within the customs union and single market.”
Mr Hunt added: “The backstop, as it is, is dead. I don’t think tweaking it with a time limit will do the trick. We have got to find a new way.”
The two contenders condemned remarks on Sunday evening from Donald Trump, the US president, that four outspoken liberal US congresswomen should “go back and help fix” their “broken and crime-infested” countries.
Mr Hunt said: “I have three half-chinese children, and they are British citizens born on the NHS, and if anyone ever said to them ‘go back to China’, I would be utterly appalled.”
Mr Johnson said: “You simply cannot use that language about sending people back to where they came from. That went out decades and decades ago and thank heavens for that.” Neither would say the language was racist.
The candidates also committed to giving one of the top four Cabinet jobs – chancellor, defence secretary, home secretary and foreign secretary – to a female Tory MP.
But while Mr Hunt said he would give a top job to his rival, Mr Johnson declined to say he would keep Mr Hunt as Foreign Secretary, saying only that he holds him in the “highest regard”.
Mr Johnson also declined to say if his girlfriend Carrie Symonds will move with him to 10 Downing Street if he becomes prime minister, saying that he has “a pretty ruthless rule in not commenting on those kind of things”.
Mr Johnson made the comments as he won the backing of dozens of Conservative black and ethnic minority community leaders who said his controversial comments about the niqab last year were “wilfully misinterpreted”.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, the group of 42 party members say: “Mr Johnson… has consistently championed tolerance. In fact, he has said that tolerance is no longer enough and that we must ensure we are inclusive.”