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.
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