Kemi Badenoch can redeem to Tories by committing to one policy (Image: PA)
The Tory migration numbers which came out last week demonstrate not only how tough it will be for the party to regain public trust on the issue of immigration but could point a way for new leader to redeem the .
In a major policy speech, also last week, Badenoch suggested both a visa cap and renewed deportations for small boat arrivals.
Yet there was no commitment on numbers nor a recommitment to the last government’s plan. Instead Badenoch said pulling out of human rights laws “may not be the most radical thing” that her future government would do.
It would design new immigration policies and review “every policy, treaty and part of our legal framework – including the ECHR and the Human Rights Act”, she said.
Yet, as leader wrote on X: “The broke its manifesto promises on in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019. Why should we believe a word they say?”
Badenoch and others – like it or not – are tainted by association with a government which singly failed to control mass immigration, both legal and illegal, and instead oversaw record arrivals (three times what it was when won his landslide).
Net immigration for the 12 months to June 2023 was recently revised upwards from 740,000 to 906,000, while net immigration in the year to December 2022 was also revised from 764,000 to 872,000. Most astonishingly the vast majority of these are dependants, students, family and asylum applicants, not workers.
While a recognition of the last government’s failures is a step in the right direction, Badenoch now faces the authenticity problem. She may be attempting to outflank , but voters want the real McCoy, not a pale imitation.
A review of migrants’ access to benefits, tightening access to British Passports and “zero tolerance” of foreign criminals is all well and good, but voters will ask why the – having been booted from office, not least because of the failure to get a grip on immigration – can all of a sudden be trusted now.
There is however a way back. Countries like Singapore and the Gulf Arab states have shown how to attract workers for economic benefit but to avoid the pitfalls of mass immigration and attendant costs in terms of social cohesion and welfare – a guest worker programme.
A UK guest worker programme does exist already in farming but Britain has never initiated anything like the systems in Asia.
Germany famously had its Gastarbeiter guest worker system, although this failed to prevent the mass settlement of millions of Turks. To be fair however, Germany changed the terms of the system to allow this.
By and large, guest worker programmes satisfy labour market and economic needs without undermining national cohesion or draining the welfare budget: the right people come at the right time for the right period of time.
If the really want to prove they have changed then adopting a guest worker programme as policy instead of immigration could satisfy business needs, disprove any accusation of racism but still achieve desired goals of controlling population numbers.
Badenoch’s speech last week was also an attempt to lure voters back from Reform UK. But the electorate’s memory is not so short as to forget the last fourteen years of broken promises. Now, with a toehold in Parliament, Reform UK has a platform and offers a genuine alternative. could also consider adopting a guest worker programme as policy.
Overall, for voters out in the country genuinely concerned about this matter why on earth would they trust the again and not plump for the genuine article in and Reform UK?
Badenoch could then do much worse than adopt a policy which actually works, would satisfy the needs of the economy but still satisfy the demands of a disgruntled patriotic electorate. Britain needs a guest worker system, not more mass immigration.