The Conservatives lost the election because they failed to control immigration. That is the closest thing to a consensus at the party’s conference.
“We did betray people,” declared Neil O’Brien MP, one of the Tories’ foremost policy thinkers. Speaking at a fringe event hosted by the Centre for Policy Studies on “taking back control” he added: “We promised again and again at every election since 1992 that we would cut the numbers and then we increased them to a record level.” (Net migration reached a record high of 764,000 in 2022.)
By the time of the election, only 8 per cent of the public approved of the government’s handling of immigration and Labour enjoyed a comfortable lead on the issue. O’Brien, a supporter of Robert Jenrick’s leadership campaign, recalled the “searing” anger he witnessed among thousands of voters.
But an underexplored question is why the Conservatives failed to reduce immigration. Part of the answer is that they were unwilling to confront the policy choices required to limit numbers. As Keir Starmer noted in his Labour conference speech, the Tories’ desire to control immigration collided with their reluctance to control markets.
But at this Centre for Policy Studies event, there were some signs that this is beginning to change. Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former chief of staff, who is now the MP for West Suffolk, advocated for greater state intervention to limit immigration.
“It’s just way too easy to work illegally in this country, it’s way too easy to employ people and treat them badly,” he said as he called for tougher labour regulations. Timothy also revived an idea first proposed by Tony Blair’s government. “You can’t look at this problem for any length of time without thinking we need to have a conversation about ID Cards,” he said (a policy some in Labour would like to see return). “These are difficult conversations for the Conservative Party to have.”
This wasn’t the only notable thread. During a discussion on pro-natalist policy – the birth rate in England and Wales has fallen to a record low of 1.49 children – O’Brien observed: “The framing in this country is so different to the rest of Europe. At the start of the year, Emmanuel Macron gave a great speech where he said we want ‘demographic rearmament’ in France, France will be stronger if we raise the birth rate and he introduced new parental leave to back this up.
“And then when Keir Starmer was asked about this the other day he said: ‘I don’t want to tell people how many kids to have’”. Starmer, O’Brien argued, was wrong to frame this as a question of intrusion – the state’s role is to enable people to make the choices they want.
In short, there are signs that rather than simply willing an end – lower immigration – Conservatives are prepared to will the means: higher pay, tougher regulation, more generous family benefits, even ID cards. When David Cameron declared that his intention was to reduce net migration to “tens of thousands” – a target O’Brien said the Tories should revive – he had nothing resembling a plan. This generation of Tories aims to take a more hard-headed approach.
The battle between Labour and the Conservatives to lead on immigration will be one of the defining contests of this parliament. Expect both to embrace the state as the agent of control.
[See also: The Tories are still in denial]
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