Rishi Sunak is facing calls from the latest Tory caucus – ‘the New Conservatives’ – to take a series of steps to clamp down on legal migration. The group, made up of MPs from the 2017 and 2019 intake, formed last month and largely features MPs with so-called Red Wall seats.
Members include Tory rising star Miriam Cates as well as Lee Anderson (this has raised eyebrows as Anderson is deputy party chairman, which would usually prevent an MP joining a backbench pressure group). For their first policy push, the New Conservatives have released a 12-point plan which they claim would allow the government to cut net migration to Britain from 606,000 to 240,000 by the end of 2024.
Braverman has pushed for more measures to crack down on legal migration but has faced Treasury opposition
The measures suggested include stopping graduating overseas students from staying on in the UK for up to two years to find work (Boris Johnson relaxed this in 2019) and cracking down on the dependents a student can bring by closing the route that would allow family members access to the jobs market.
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