There’s no one to vote for if you want controlled immigration

There has been much Tory huffing and puffing about the ONS revising 2022 net migration to 745,000, up from its previous estimate of 606,000. James Heale has documented their dismay. Conservative MPs are a journalist’s dream: they don’t do much but they’re always quick off the mark with a statement lamenting all the things they’ve not done. 

You will have read this story before. The Conservatives pledge to crack down on immigration, immigration goes up, and the Tories announce that they’re jolly cross about it. Boy, just you wait till they get into government. Oh how things will be different then. 

Every election the Conservative party has won in the last 40 years it has done so on a manifesto promising controlled or reduced immigration. In 1983, it was a pledge to ‘maintain effective immigration control’; in 1987, ‘firm but fair immigration controls’; and in 1992, ‘immigration controls which are fair, understandable and properly enforced’.