Do you remember how cross the progressives were when Boris Johnson unveiled his new points-based immigration policy? The grown-ups warned that even a reduction in the numbers of low-skilled non-English speakers threatened to wreck the economy.
Yet their fears evaporated as swiftly as the promises of Tory politicians that the new points regime would slash overall numbers. By now we are only too familiar with the true picture: in 2019, the UK’s net migration was below 200,000. In 2023, it reached a record high of 906,000. Even that former defender of asylum-seekers, Keir Starmer, has accused the Tories of running an “open borders experiment”.
This system has not, as Johnson bragged, attracted the “best and the brightest” whilst limiting the number of “unskilled immigrants coming to Britain”. At least, not according to what data we have. As Neil O’Brien has flagged, in the five years to 2024, about two million people from outside Europe arrived in Britain. What proportion came to work and rescue our economy from the doldrums? Just 15 per cent.
Do you remember how cross the progressives were when Boris Johnson unveiled his new points-based immigration policy? The grown-ups warned that even a reduction in the numbers of low-skilled non-English speakers threatened to wreck the economy.
Yet their fears evaporated as swiftly as the promises of Tory politicians that the new points regime would slash overall numbers. By now we are only too familiar with the true picture: in 2019, the UK’s net migration was below 200,000. In 2023, it reached a record high of 906,000. Even that former defender of asylum-seekers, Keir Starmer, has accused the Tories of running an “open borders experiment”.
This system has not, as Johnson bragged, attracted the “best and the brightest” whilst limiting the number of “unskilled immigrants coming to Britain”. At least, not according to what data we have. As Neil O’Brien has flagged, in the five years to 2024, about two million people from outside Europe arrived in Britain. What proportion came to work and rescue our economy from the doldrums? Just 15 per cent.