The Neather Brouhaha: A Correction

So I was wrong. It was a mistake to suggest that the alleged Neather Plot – that is, the conspiracy to “swamp” Britain with Labour-voting imigrants – was the kind of cockamamie scheme that could only be the work of over-excited junior clever chaps at the Home Office. Not so! It turns out that it’s even simpler than that: the scheme didn’t exist at all.

Remember, Mr Neather originally claimed that a report from Downing Street’s Performance and Innovation Unit saw immigration as a massive political opportunity for the government:

But the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.

I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn’t its main purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.