Simply

The big drivers have been post-Brexit labour shock, post-covid labour shock, the war in Ukraine.

Those increasingly won't obtain as time goes on even if we do nothing at all.

The small boats thing is a red herring btw, it's a tiny tiny percentage of overall immigration, most of which is legal.

If you really want to reduce legal immigration sharply then you also need to invest in the UK skills base, and that kind of capex takes years to pay off. You also need to give Universities more money because they are making a mint from overseas students (who come in legally).

But even without that, he's highlighting the supposed "open doors" from the Tories (which simply was not the case, incidentally, but in the world of politics, that doesn't really matter) to make sure that sticks in peoples' minds, so he can say in five years' time that immigration went up under the Tories and down under Labour.

Posted By: Old Man, Nov 29, 13:55:03