The latest promise from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to reduce mass migration to Britain has been characterised as the “Great Immigration Lie” by Brexit leader Nigel Farage, who said that he didn’t believe “a word” of the Tory leader’s likely empty promise.
Ahead of the upcoming release of latest immigration figures, which are reportedly set to reveal that net migration has hit another grim record, Rishi Sunak has dusted off the old Conservative Party playbook of making yet another promise to the public to finally curb the influx of foreigners to the country.
Pledging to finally cut numbers, Sunak said according to The Times of London: “On the topic of legal migration let me be crystal clear: I think the numbers are too high and I’m committed to bringing them down,” he said during a trip to Japan. “Without getting into specific measures, we’re considering a range of options to bring numbers down and we’ll have more to say on that shortly.”
Responding, Brexiteer Nigel Farage said: “I don’t believe a word of it. The Great Immigration Lie continues, this time perpetrated by Rishi Sunak.”
“Later this week, the Great Immigration Lie will finally be exposed when the ONS figures are released. Successive Tory governments have misled us for over a decade, and it will be plain for all to see,” he added.
Despite the Conservative Party promising to reduce migration in each of the last three general elections — most recently pledging ahead of the 2019 election that “overall numbers will come down” — the party has seemingly been intent to usher in an open borders society, with annual net migration nearly doubling the already historic heights reached under the left-wing Labour government of Tony Blair in the early 2000s.
While many attempt to blame the failure of successive Conservative governments to reduce migration on ineptitude and incompetence, former finance minister George Osbourne admitted in 2017 that mass migration was a feature, not a fault of Tory leadership and that the party never actually intended on fulfilling its promise to reduce migration to the tens of thousands.
This, the Tories promised, would change upon the completion of Brexit. Yet, rather than cutting the number of foreigners permitted to enter the country, the exact opposite occurred, with a record 1.1 million visas being issued last year and net migration hitting a record half a million.
Later this week, the Office For National Statistics (ONS) is expected to release the latest batch of immigration figures. According to media reports, the Home Office is expecting that net migration over the past year could have hit as much as one million, nearly double last year’s record total.
While the government has opened up the gates, Britain has seen the fertility rate plummet among the native population — which now struggle to find well-paid jobs or affordable houses. In 2020, the fertility rate for native British women in England and Wales fell to its lowest level in recorded history at just 1.5 children per woman — far below the replacement rate of 2.1 children.
The confluence of mass migration and precipitously falling birth rates has resulted in major demographic changes in the UK, with the native population making up 87.5 per cent of the country in 2001, compared to just three-quarters in 2021.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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