Suella Braverman revived an earlier Conservative pledge to reduce net migration by tens of thousands of people, despite the failure of successive governments to achieve the same target over a nine-year period.
The home secretary said he would seek to reduce the overall migration figure from the current level of 239,000 amid growing clamor from party campaigners for the government to take control of immigration levels.
She was also forced to admit that the Conservatives’ plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda would not happen “for a long time”.
Appearing at an emergency meeting of the Tory party conference, she said her “ultimate aspiration” was to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands, but declined to set a precise target to be met before the next election.
“In the 1990s it was in the tens of thousands under Mrs Thatcher – net migration – and David Cameron said the famous tens of thousands, no ifs, buts.
“So that would be my main aspiration, but we have to take it slowly and we have to go incrementally.
“I think we definitely need to significantly reduce the number of students, the number of work visas and especially the number of visa dependents,” she said.
Cameron first pledged to keep net migration to tens of thousands in 2010. The target, which was never met, was maintained by Theresa May’s government before being abandoned in 2019 under Boris Johnson.
Net migration in the year ending June 2021 was 239,000, according to the House of Commons library.
Farmers must stop relying on foreign workers, Braverman said, urging them to improve automation and hire more UK nationals. “I’m not convinced that domestic workers don’t want to work as farmers,” she said.
Braverman, who replaced Priti Patel in the cabinet last month, told Telegraph assistant editor Christopher Hope that sending migrants to Rwanda before Christmas would be “my dream”, but admitted it would not happen “for a long time”. due to legal challenges that may reach the European Court of Human Rights. “Unfortunately, we have to let this happen,” she said.
Taking a more conciliatory tone than her predecessor, she praised her French counterparts and said the UK would seek a new deal to double the number of French patrols covering the coastline around Calais.
Turning to drug use, she called on police to take a “tough stance” on casual cannabis use and criticized middle-class parents for “turning a blind eye” to their children’s recreational use.
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“We have to take a firm stand,” she said.
Braverman, a critic of so-called “woke” culture, said he was “proud of the British Empire” and its heritage and refused to rule out running for Conservative Party leader again if there was a vacancy.
“Everyone should try running, it was a great experience,” she said.
Enver Solomon, head of the Refugee Council, said none of the Home Secretary’s proposals on immigration would address problems in the asylum system.
“It fundamentally fails to address the reasons why people are compelled to come here in the first place,” he said.
“We need constructive proposals, from creating safe routes for refugees to ending the backlog of asylum applications and working with international partners to properly address the root causes of forced migration.”
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