Why is Theresa May doggedly sticking to the Tory net migration target, even when it has failed so badly in this Parliament? Her Tory colleagues might be asking why she’s even talking about it when immigration is not one of the key campaign priorities for her party. It is supposed to be talking about housing this week, not immigration. But there on the front page of today’s Times (which is holding an immigration series this week, so May has probably not decided to time her intervention) is May insisting that the target should be kept. She tells the paper:
‘You will have to wait for the manifesto to see the exact words. The idea of the net migration target will still be there. It will be measured [in the same way].’
May is frequently frustrated by the nimbyism of fellow cabinet ministers who agree with such a target in principle but who then ask for exemptions for their own departments, whether they be for business or the health service. There is also, as I reported before, some frustration that the Tories have linked welfare and immigration on the same message sheet, with some working on these areas feeling that it suggests the campaign high command don’t really understand the policies involved.
But surely if there is any sort of target in the Tory manifesto, it must be based not even on what the party thinks it might be able to get from a renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU, but on how it is possible to manage migration now. This might mean the manifesto contains something that doesn’t look very ambitious, but it’s better than something that is impossible.
Currently, though, the party has failed to meet its target and is also failing to avoid talking about immigration.
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