Net migration target fails as Cameron prepares to make more immigration pledges

We are still waiting for David Cameron’s immigration speech, expected ‘this week’. The Conservatives tried to get their apology in early for failing to meet their target to get net migration into the ‘tens of thousands’, with a series of interventions starting this summer in which top Cabinet ministers started to highlight the problems with having a target when you can’t control EU migration, ahead of today’s figures showing that the target is an ex-target, or a ‘comment’, as Theresa May tried to pass it off as recently.

Fraser looks at why missing that target is a good thing for this country in his post here. But it is bad politically for a number of reasons. Firstly it’s another broken promise. That doesn’t help any politician, especially when parties who claim not to be stuffed with the usual sorts of politicians, such as Ukip, are gaining in popularity. Today Ukip’s migration spokesman Steven Woolfe, said:

‘This is either a total scandal or a long standing con trick by a Party who were elected on the promise of reducing immigration to the tens of thousands.Today’s