Cleverly’s migration politicking may be too little, too late
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It was as unashamed in its naked politicking as Sir Keir Starmer purporting to be the next Thatcher in The Telegraph.
Legal migration was far too high, insisted border controller-in-chief James Cleverly, and the Conservatives were (finally) going to do something about it.
“Today we are taking more robust action than any government before,” he declared, as if he somehow belonged to a different tribe from the one that repeatedly promised to bring numbers down to the “tens of thousands” only to end up with 745,000 new arrivals last year – after 13 years of Tory rule.
As is ever the case with such announcements, timing was everything. The Home Secretary delivered his statement to the Commons just as Rishi Sunak’s approval rating among Tory activists was revealed to have dropped to a new low of -25.
Seemingly with the influential Conservative Home poll in mind (last month he was top of the table on plus 72, but since moving to the Home Office and denying calling Stockton-on-Tees a s---hole, he has fallen to 11th from bottom), Mr Cleverly took to his feet.
He declared that the public was “absolutely right to want to reduce overall immigration numbers – not only by stopping the boats and shutting down illegal routes, but through a reduction in legal immigration.”
This was the MP for Braintree channelling his inner Nigel Farage while the former Ukip/Brexit Party leader was otherwise engaged in the Australian jungle.
Amid growing talk of a May general election, there’s a faint whiff of Reform in the air. Traditional Conservatives increasingly seem to be saying to the party: I’m a Right-wing Tory, get me out of here! So something had to be done.
As with all plans devised by Rishi Sunak’s Government, there were five points to it.
This FPP (five-point plan) was not to be confused with the Prime Minister’s original FPP to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut waiting lists and stop the boats.
Or indeed his supplementary FPP, announced last month, to (deep breath) reduce debt, cut tax and reward hard work, build domestic, sustainable energy, back British business and deliver world-class education.
Cleverly’s quintet of pledges was no less ambitious in promising to curb abuse of the health and care visa, increase migrant salary thresholds, cut the shortage occupations list discounts, increase family income requirements and cut student dependants.
Taken together, he boasted, the proposals would mean “that around 300,000 people who were eligible to come to the UK last year would not be able to in future – the largest reduction on record”.
Just in case the electorate didn’t get the message, he hammered it home with a Bravermanesque: “Enough is enough.”
But will it be enough to stop the mass migration of voters away from the Conservatives?
A little like the Autumn Statement offering “the biggest tax cut on work since the 1980s”, only to take the tax burden up to a record high of 37.7 per cent come 2028, wouldn’t bringing legal migration down by 300,000 still result in an annual influx of around 445,000?
It remains to be seen whether the public will view still granting visas to the equivalent of the population of Leeds every year as “the largest reduction on record”.
The Tories won power in 2019 promising that net migration would fall, but what Cleverly is proposing still amounts to double the level of immigration witnessed at the last general election.
Yet as with Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement last month, the spirit of the piece appeared to be that you’ve got to start somewhere.
Voters, however, could be forgiven for suspecting that the Government has closed the stable door after the horse has bolted.
