Braverman pushes PM to deliver on migrants
Warning that immigration risks British forgetting ‘how to do things for ourselves’
SUELLA BRAVERMAN will today demand that Rishi Sunak deliver the Tory manifesto promise to reduce net migration so Britain does not forget how to “do things for ourselves”.
The Home Secretary will use a speech at the National Conservatism Conference to argue that “it’s not xenophobic to say that mass and rapid migration is unsustainable” as the Cabinet is split over the scale of immigration since the Brexit vote.
The Tories made a manifesto pledge in 2019 to bring down overall migration, but the number is expected to hit close to 700,000 in official figures to be released within weeks, with analysis suggesting that it could even reach one million this year.
Mrs Braverman’s intervention comes after days of criticism aimed at the Prime Minister from some Tory MPS, many of them prominent supporters of Boris Johnson, after the party lost more than 1,000 councillors at the local elections and he abandoned a promise to scrap all EU laws by the end of 2023.
Mr Sunak has put growing the economy and boosting the UK’S productivity, which has lagged behind other major economies for years, at the centre of his pitch to voters.
However, the Government is struggling to convince workers who left jobs during the pandemic to return, and senior Tories fear that immigration is seen as a quick fix for vacancies.
Mrs Braverman will say today: “I voted and campaigned for Brexit because I wanted Britain to control migration. So that we all have a say on what works for our country. Highskilled workers support economic growth. Fact.
“But we need to get overall immigration numbers down. And we mustn’t forget how to do things for ourselves.
“There is no good reason why we can’t train up enough HGV drivers, butchers or fruit pickers. Brexit enables us to build a high-skilled, high-wage economy that is less dependent on lowskilled foreign labour.
“That was our 2019 manifesto pledge and what we must deliver.”
However, there are Cabinet splits on the approach to bringing down legal migration. Mrs Braverman has pushed for restrictions on the number of dependants that foreign students can bring to the UK, but the package is understood to have been watered down after resistance from Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary. Some senior Cabinet ministers are also calling for an increase in the £26,000 minimumsalary needed for foreign work visas, deeming it too low – though no hard proposals have been drafted.
The final decision on how to restrict foreign students bringing in dependants – which has risen in recent years – is understood to be now with Mr Sunak.
In the 2019 election manifesto, the Conservatives did not repeat David Cameron’s promise to get net migration – the number of people moving to Britain minus those in the UK moving overseas – below 100,000. But there was a promise that “overall numbers will come down”.
The opposite has happened. Annual net migration peaked at 331,000 before
‘Rishi Sunak made a specific promise to scrap thousands of EU laws. He has broken it’
the Brexit vote in 2016. It hit 504,000 in the year to June 2022, and analysis by migration experts suggest the figure could be as high as 997,000 when the official figures are published in the coming weeks.
The number of people moving from the European Union slowed when Britain left the bloc, with “free movement” rules no longer applying. But jumps in the number of work visas and student visas issued to foreigners, plus the taking in of Ukrainian refugees and Hong Kong citizens, has fuelled the rise.
More criticism of Mr Sunak’s leadership is expected at the three-day National Conservatism Conference.
Jacob Rees-mogg, also speaking today, will say: “Rishi Sunak made a specific promise to scrap thousands of EU laws. He has broken it.
“This is unfortunate, as one of his perceived virtues is his trustworthiness and the surrender to the Blob risks exposing the government to ridicule. It
also risks making us poorer.” Mrs Braverman, who has become a leading figure in the Tory Party’s Right flank after running for the leadership last year, left Liz Truss’s Cabinet amid a row about the then prime minister’s proposals to increase legal immigration.
Mrs Braverman will also say in her speech: “It’s not xenophobic to say that mass and rapid migration is unsustainable in terms of housing supply, service and community relations.
“Nor is it bigoted to say that too many people come here illegally and claim asylum, and we have insufficient accommodation for them.
“I’m not embarrassed to say that I love Britain. No true Conservative is. It’s not racist for anyone, ethnic minority or otherwise, to want to control our borders.
“I reject the Left’s argument that it is hypocritical for someone from an ethnic minority to know these facts; to speak these truths.
“My parents came here through legal and controlled migration. They spoke the language. They threw themselves into the community, embraced British values.
“When they arrived they signed up to be part of our shared project because the UK meant something to them.”