Immigration fault line could remove Conservative Party from power
Immigration has long been a Conservative fault line, but news that net migration may hit one million when new figures are released in a fortnight’s time appears to have widened the chasm.
Forget stopping the boats, could Rishi Sunak be about to fall into the void over the number of people arriving in Britain, legally?
On one side of the Tory divide is Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who argues that higher immigration benefits the economy by increasing GDP because migrants have historically overwhelmingly been of working age, meaning their participation rate is higher than among the wider population. In the Spring Budget, he opened the door to more migrants by adding jobs including plasterers and carpenters to the shortage occupations list, making it easier for certain workers to come to the UK.
His thinking is in line with that of his predecessor George Osborne, who repeatedly clashed with both David Cameron and Theresa May over his desire to grant more visas to the Chinese during the so-called “golden era” as well his move to have student visas removed from the immigration figures altogether.
Naturally, the former chancellor was horrified when Mr Cameron, fearing an exodus of Tory voters to UKIP, promised in 2014 to bring net migration down “from hundreds of thousands” annually to “just tens of thousands”. Vowing to axe bogus colleges, cut benefits to jobless arrivals and stop advertising jobs abroad, he criticised Labour’s “failed” immigration system, writing: “Unforgivably, while we had the highest rates of migration in our modern history, we also had well over five million people of working age on out-of-work benefits.”
Nearly a decade on, however, and that epithet can now be applied to the Conservatives. With the Government struggling to convince workers who left jobs during the pandemic to return, the number of working age people on benefits currently stands at 5.2 million, while net migration hit a record 504,000 last year.
Official forecasts released by the Office for Budget Responsibility in March predict that net migration to Britain is likely to average more than 240,000 a year from 2026-2027 on – dwarfing the 177,000 that Cameron cited as showing immigration to be “completely out of control”.
Yet these figures are, in turn, surpassed by analysis by migration experts suggesting the latest figure could be as high as 997,000 when the Office for National Statistics releases the data on May 25. The surge is fuelled by a continued sharp increase in non-eu migrants entering the UK to study, work or escape conflict or oppression, after Brexit saw the end of freedom of movement for workers from the European Union.
But if net migration reaches the top estimate of one million, it would be equivalent to four years of net migration before Brexit.
Which explains why Leavers like Suella Braverman, having vowed that Brexit would allow us to “take back control” of our borders, are now on the warpath.
Her plea at yesterday’s National Conservatism Conference for a reduction in net migration so Britain does not forget how to “do things for ourselves” speaks to fears on the Right of the party that immigration could cost the Tories the next general election, not least after losing more than 1,000 councillors at the recent local elections.
The Home Secretary has pushed for restrictions on the number of dependents that foreign students can bring to the UK after a seven-fold increase since 2019. The latest data suggests that only a fifth of visas were issued for work last year, while 30pc were for students. The remaining half was for Ukrainians, Hong Kongers, other refugees and people arriving on family visas.
But the package is understood to have been watered down after resistance from Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary. On Sunday, Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, indicated he was “relaxed” about the figures, saying: “I’m rather proud of our record on immigration.”
Such is the cabinet split that some ministers are now also calling for an increase in the £26,000 minimum salary needed for foreign work visas, deeming it too low, though no hard proposals have been drafted. The final decision now rests with Mr Sunak.
Could it make or break his premiership?
Hunt added jobs including plasterers and carpenters to the shortage occupations list
Leavers, having vowed that Brexit would let us ‘take back control’ of borders, are now on the warpath