General election 2019: Tories promise to cut ‘immigration overall’

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The Conservatives will reduce “immigration overall” to the UK after Brexit if they win the general election, Home Secretary Priti Patel has said.

Senior Tory figures have so far stopped short of making such a commitment before the party’s post-Brexit immigration policy is set out.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “I have been pro-immigration, but also in favour of control.”

Labour has yet to announce its policy.

But Jeremy Corbyn said he would commit to “a fair immigration process that recognised the huge contribution made by migrant workers to this country”.

“We have got to be realistic about the needs of our economy for bringing workers in, skilled workers in to help us,” he added.

An SNP spokesman said cutting immigration would be “hugely damaging” for the Scottish economy and called the issue to be devolved to the Scottish government.

And the Lib Dems’ home affairs spokesperson Christine Jardine called the Conservatives’ approach “an insult to the millions who have come to the UK and made it their home”.

Ms Patel did not spell out in detail how she planned to cut immigration. The Conservatives say they will end free movement from the EU on 1 January 2021, if they win the election and get their Brexit deal through by 31 January.

The party is planning a “points-based” system, based on skills and other factors, which would apply to EU and non-EU migrants.

However, the party is expected to ditch its longstanding commitment to cut net migration – the difference between the number of people entering and leaving the country – to below 100,000, after repeatedly failing to meet it.

Security Minister Brandon Lewis acknowledged that, by not fulfilling the pledge the Conservatives had “let people down” and added he would “not be getting in to setting arbitrary targets”.

Last week, Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins repeatedly declined to say whether immigration would be higher or lower under a future Tory government, in a BBC Radio 4 Today programme interview.

But Ms Patel has said in a statement released by the party: “We will reduce immigration overall while being more open and flexible to the highly skilled people we need, such as scientists and doctors.

“This can only happen if people vote for a Conservative majority government so we can leave the EU with a deal.”

She claimed there would be a “surge” in immigration under a Labour government, which would put a huge strain on the NHS and other public services.

Elsewhere on the election campaign trail:

• Boris Johnson campaigns in south-west England but cancels one visit to Glastonbury, Somerset after protests from Extinction Rebellion, Labour and anti-Brexit campaigners
• Labour pledges to close the gender pay gap as Jeremy Corbyn continues his tour of Scotland
• Lib Dem candidates Luciana Berger and Chuka Umunna use a press conference to unveil the party’s plan for equalities and human rights
• Nicola Sturgeon ridicules Labour’s stance on a Scottish independence referendum
• Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage accuses the Conservative Party of inflicting “wall-to-wall abuse” on his candidates and insists his party will stand against Labour candidates

Home Secretary Priti Patel is explicit: “We will reduce immigration overall.”

But it is not yet clear precisely how, by how much, or by when.

First in 2010, then in 2015 and again in 2017, the Conservatives said they wanted to cut net migration to below 100,000 a year. It was never achieved.

And that promise won’t be renewed.

But Priti Patel is confident her more vague promise can be kept, by delivering Brexit.

The Tories are seeking to contrast their instinct with what they claim would be a massive increase in immigration under Labour – something Labour say is knowingly misleading.

We don’t yet know what Jeremy Corbyn will commit to in his manifesto.

‘Heed public concerns’

Labour members backed a party conference motion in September defending the right of EU migrants to live and work in the UK, to reject any immigration system based on quotas, caps, targets or incomes, and to extend migrant rights.

But there is a debate at the top of the party over whether to include such a commitment in the party’s general election manifesto, which is set to be finalised at a weekend meeting of its national executive committee.

Unite union leader Len McCluskey, a key ally of Jeremy Corbyn, said extending free movement would not be “sensible”, telling the Guardian that the only beneficiaries of uncontrolled immigration were “the bosses of unscrupulous companies”.

“It’s wrong in my view to have any greater free movement of labour unless you get stricter labour market regulation,” he said.

He said Labour had to heed public concerns over levels of unskilled immigration, as it was used to undercut the pay and conditions of British workers.

“If you don’t understand those concerns, you fail to grasp the divisions that exist,” he said.

“If we don’t deal with the issues and concerns, we will create a vacuum that will be filled by a far right seeking to become the voice of the white working class.”

Meanwhile, shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said a Labour government would “extend freedom of movement rights to all those legally entitled to be here”.

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Labour promised to end free movement from Europe – which is a condition of EU membership – in its 2017 general election manifesto, but some of the party’s senior figures want to remain in the EU.

Labour have said, if they win power, they will tear up Boris Johnson’s Brexit agreement with the EU and negotiate a better deal based on a much stronger relationship with the EU’s single market.

Some within the party see Norway, which is outside the EU’s political institutions but remains part of the single market as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), as a model for the UK’s future relationship.

But the Conservatives claimed that if the UK was to remain in the EEA, it would have to accept free movement rules and that would see levels of net migration to the UK of 260,000 each year over the next decade

If free movement rights were extended to non-EU countries, the Conservatives estimated that this figure could rise to an average of 840,000 a year – a number it said was based on “official figures and the government’s own methodology”.

This is based on the assumption that Labour would allow free movement with the rest of the world and that the economy would continue to grow at its current level.

According to the latest official figures, net migration totalled 226,000 in the year to March 2019.

Although numbers have remained “broadly stable” since the end of 2016, EU immigration to the UK is currently at its lowest level since 2013.

Labour said the Tories were knowingly misleading the public on its conference motion, which has no mention of geographically extending freedom of movement to other countries.

Asked whether maintaining and extending free movement from the EU would be in their manifesto, Mr Corbyn said what goes in the manifesto is “not necessarily every last dot and comma of every resolution passed at conference”.

On Conservative accusations that immigration would rise under Labour, he said: “I’ve no idea where they get those figures from – I suspect they just, quite simply, make them up.”

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