London, (Parliament Politics Magazine) – It seems earrings and dress sense are more important than immigration policy. Is that really what people are judging Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak’s suitability for the highest political office. Perhaps I missed it, apologies if I did, but the BBC debate had nothing about immigration policy. Indeed, at one point I thought we had already switched to another BBC programme. Quick fire round of questions? Had we seamlessly moved onto “Would I lie to you?” I have to say, a parody of WILTY seemed appropriate given the depths to which these ludicrous TV debates have descended. They are more about become pulling in reality show viewers than scrutinising a future Prime Minister. Perhaps I am wrong but I strongly believe that we the electorate care a lot about the policies of the governing party. Furthermore, the concerns about immigration policy in particular remain high.
I realise that the two finalists, (for that is how the TV companies seem to regard the contestants) wrote about the goings-on in the Channel, the Rwanda deal and the ECHR over the weekend but neither has mentioned the real immigration issue that worries people most, the sheer scale of continuing legal immigration.
On Tuesday (26 July) we published a remarkable poll (DeltaPoll, see details here) on the wider issue, revealing the deep undercurrent of concern about the the massive levels of immigration and the impact this is having on the future of our society.
60% of the British public want to see a reduction in immigration. 34% want to see it reduced by a lot. Conservative voters feel even more strongly – nearly eight out of ten want to see a reduction and half of them want to see it reduced by a lot. Yet until last Sunday neither of the remaining Conservative leadership candidates had even mentioned the subject.
Rishi Sunak’s “Ten point plan”, published in the Sunday Telegraph is focused almost entirely on the weaknesses of the asylum system. He suggests that the number of refugees accepted in Britain should be determined by need but he does not indicate how many of the world’s 40 million potential refugees we should accept; that is to be a matter for Parliament. Those fleeing imminent danger will be prioritised and the only routes to asylum would be safe and legal (what this means is anyone’s guess). 80% of claims must be resolved within six months and foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers must be sent home – again quite how this could be done is unspecified. In any case, Priti Patel committed to much of this in her “New plan for Immigration”, published a few days ago.
Liz Truss is even more superficial. In her interview with the Mail on Sunday, she doubled down on the Rwanda policy and promised an increase in front line border staff but there was little else.
All this is beating about the bush. Worse, it is probably intended to distract attention from the real issue which is the sheer scale of legal immigration to the UK. Net migration is five or six times current levels of asylum seekers. The seriousness of this matter is beyond dispute and is certainly understood by the majority of people.
The importance of uncontrolled and rising immigration is obvious and yet our leading politicians continue to ignore it. The recent census has confirmed that the UK population has increased by eight million over the past twenty years. Seven million of that increase is due to immigrants and their children. Yet England, the main UK destination for immigrants, is already nearly twice as crowded as Germany and three and a half times as crowded as France.
The pressure is being felt on all our public services and especially on housing where we will have to build a new home every six minutes, night and day, to house new migrants. Addressing high immigration is without doubt the key to solving the housing conundrum.
Housing is one of the obvious, and real, issues, not just in the south, but in swathes of the country. All MPs know that, in many parts of England, there are strong feelings on these matters, even if many people are cautious about raising some aspects of immigration.
The government that our next Prime Minister leads must recognise the serious risks to the future of our country by uncontrolled, runaway immigration. Yes, to immigration but an emphatic no to the uncontrolled, and growing, mass immigration that we still have.
Like the Labour Party (who are to blame for many of of the immigration related problems we face today) the Conservative record on the issue has been one of consistent failure. They did after all commit in the general elections of 2010, 2015 and 2017 to get immigration down to tens of thousands a year but failed to do so. In the 2019 election Boris Johnson promised to control and reduce immigration which, before Covid struck, was averaging about 230,000 (net migration) a year. Again, they have completely failed to do so.
In fact, Mr Johnson’s government have massively increased the scope for future immigration. The “Australian style” points based system turned out to be just camouflage for lower salary and qualification requirements. They also abolished the requirement that jobs first be advertised on the domestic market.
As for students, they will now be allowed to stay on for an extra two years in which they will be able to simply stack shelves or, indeed, do no work at all. In a nutshell, the government under Boris Johnson, and Sajid Javid as the Home Secretary at the time, surrendered completely to the Immigration Lobby.
This is why I have issued a challenge to both candidates to come clean on their immigration policies and give a clear undertaking (no ifs or buts) to make a major reduction in the scale of immigration. Will they continue to ignore one of the major issues of domestic policy or will they have the courage to address it?
Alp Mehmet
Chairman, Migration Watch UK