The home secretary, however, takes a tougher stance - and behind the scenes, it has even been suggested to me backlash to today's figures could help her cause in cabinet. The prime minister knows on legal migration there is a balance to be struck with economic concerns over workforce shortages, a view expressed by the chancellor.įormer cabinet minister Robert Buckland told Kay Burley this morning a 'more measured and calm debate' about migration is needed. There will be questions about whether the government’s rhetoric matches its action. Whatever the complexities behind the rising figures, and even if they were not as high as expected, record net migration will fuel the right of the Conservative Party and re-ignite a migration debate. In recent years several factors have come together at once: a boom in the recruitment of international students, skilled workers come from outside the EU post Brexit and schemes helping those coming from Ukraine and Hong Kong. The government say they want to cut migration but the numbers are plainly going in opposite direction: net migration has hit a record level of 606,000. That the record high was not higher will nonetheless be met with a small sigh of relief in Number 10.īut the headline figure still sends a clear message. There is always a degree of expectation management in politics, and that may have been a factor when it came to the predictions of net migration going north of 700,000, even one million.

The Scotch King by Penelope Sky