May and Green put up the barricades on migration targets

David Cameron is already going to struggle to hit his target of taking net migration from 250,000 to the tens of thousands. But I understand that the Home Office is nervous that other Whitehall departments could undermine that target further, seeing immigration as one sinew that could be strained as they begin to panic about growth. Look closely, and you can see an inter-governmental battle being fought. Theresa May and Damian Green have been on manoeuvres today, highlighting the government’s progress in cutting net migration. The Home Secretary has an op-ed in The Sun on Sunday, where she also lists some of the areas which have been tightened to ‘make life in the UK much more uncomfortable’ for illegal immigrants. Meanwhile Green appeared on LBC Radio, where he described ‘a real failure of mainstream politics’ under Labour which led to immigration never falling below 150,000 a year, while discussing the subject became ‘almost impolite’.