The Prime Minister was dealt a major blow on Thursday after the net migration figure hit 672,000, meaning Brexit under the Tories is now dead and the UK is open to the European Union – GB News reports.
The latest findings now look extremely dubious and unlikely to convince desperate Brexit voters who were persuaded in 2016 by the Vote Leave party’s promises to “take back control” of the UK’s borders.
“It shows a total disregard for the electorate because even some of the MPs who claim they wanted Brexit have a totally different view to the general population,” veterans of the Eurosceptic campaign told GB News.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson doubled down on his pledge at the last general election, promising to introduce an Australian-style points system that he said would lead to “fewer lower-skilled migrants” and a reduction in overall numbers.
Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who led a failed Remain campaign and labelled Brexit his biggest political “regret,” has previously pledged to reduce net migration to tens of thousands of people during his tenure.
“We had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to restructure the economy and make it a high-pay, high-skilled economy but the Government has gone down the avenue of low-skilled mass immigration and pumped the numbers up,” a Vote Leave campaign insider added to GB News.
A second pro-Brexit campaigner was even more scathing about the Tory party’s handling of the UK’s exit from the EU: “The net migration numbers show that the Brexit project is dead under the Tories.”
“People have been lied to and there is understandable anger that the Conservative Party seem to be presiding over an open border system that dwarfs the damage done by New Labour.”
The campaigner, who called for “a wholesale clear-out of Westminster,” added: “The Conservatives have given us plenty of tough talk but continue to govern as One Nation centrists that are indistinguishable from Liberal Democrats.”
However, former Number 10 co-ordinator Dominic Cummings believes that the main advantage of Brexit in the current immigration debate is that politicians are now accountable and can no longer blame Brussels and reiterated the follows:
The responsibility for immigration policy, from anywhere, lies at Westminster… They can no longer blame anyone else.
Public opinion confirms that immigration was the second most important factor driving voters towards Brexit, with sovereignty being the main issue.
“The net migration numbers show that the Brexit project is dead under the Tories,” the source said.
A poll earlier this year confirms that 52 percent of voters want a reduction in the number of immigrants coming to the U.K.
Only 14 percent were in favour of increasing the figure, while 22% wanted it to stay the same. Meanwhile, 74% of Tory voters in 2019 and 73% of Leave voters in 2016 would like to see the number of immigrants reduced.
“As a Brexiteer, I want control of our immigration and we have that. I don’t think the number is the point, it’s control. What we do need is more housing which is being stopped by labour,” one minister told GB News.
Sunak refused to apologise for the scale of immigration in recent years, but admitted the 2023 figure was too high. And during a visit to Nissan’s car factory in Sunderland, the Prime Minister said:
I’m very clear that the levels of migration are too high and they’ve got to come down to more sustainable levels.
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick will soon unveil a five-point plan to reduce legal migration. It is expected to include proposals to abolish the Shortage Occupation List, which allows foreign workers to be paid 20 per cent less than normal if the industry is in dire need of labour.
A source close to the ERG issued a strong warning to the Prime Minister on how to deal with the situation:
This will really spook large numbers of MPs and after buying a bit of time with the Autumn Statement all momentum has been lost again. I think if polls don’t start to narrow then that will be a huge worry for Number 10 as this was their last chance at a major reset.
