You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, said Abraham Lincoln. Theresa May faces a different question: for how long can you string along an entire electorate? She has been a defender of the pledge to cut net migration below 100,000 – a pledge that was adopted in a different era, before the Great Migration got underway. Cameron more or less got away with this – until he didn’t. During the referendum campaign, news that net migration hit 333,000 changed the debate and embodied the point under discussion. Cameron was haunted with this pledge throughout the campaign: how he’ll have regretted not dropping it when he had the chance. But will Mrs May? I look at this in my Daily Telegraph column today.
Even if she thinks of some post-Brexit scheme to curb migration, we won’t leave the EU until 2019 and new controls will take years to have an effect.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in