Rishi Sunak goes into the week on the defensive over legal migration. After figures late last week revealed net migration hit a record 750,000 in the year to December 2022, the Prime Minister is under pressure from his own side to act. This afternoon James Cleverly will address the House where he is expected to lay out a series of proposals the government is considering.
As is becoming a trend, Sunak’s former home secretary Suella Braverman has taken the opportunity to accuse her old boss of doing too little. Right on cue, today’s Telegraph reports that it has seen ‘a copy of the pact’ between Braverman and Sunak when she agreed to back him for leader last year. Allies of the former home secretary accuse Sunak of reneging on an agreement to raise the minimum salary for skilled foreign workers from £26,000 to £40,000.
While Braverman’s backers concede their deal was never signed, they say Sunak agreed to her demands verbally. Sunak is also facing calls from Boris Johnson to do more – with the former PM suggesting over the weekend that he backs the idea of a £40k threshold. However, given he didn’t do this when he was in No. 10, it’s fair to say his call is having less cut through.
It’s why the trickier pressure for Sunak is more likely to come from around the cabinet table. Home Office minister Robert Jenrick recently made headlines for the five-point plan he is pushing behind the scenes – which includes a ban on foreign social care workers from bringing in any dependants. This morning, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch used the ministerial media round to make clear that she is pushing for ‘much, much tougher’ immigration measures and supports ‘the strongest measures possible’.
Both Badenoch and Jenrick have won praise from the Tory right for their comments. Sunak and Cleverly face a difficult task balancing these concerns with the needs of the economy at present. The risk for Sunak is that what he comes up with does not go far enough to satisfy his own side.
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