Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has suggested the Treasury was to blame for the rise in immigration during the Conservatives’ time in power in her closing conference speech.
Ms Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat are all battling to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, and migration has been a central topic of discussion during the contest.
All the candidates got a chance to make a final pitch to the conference on Wednesday morning.
“We promised to lower taxes, they went up. We promised to lower immigration, it went up. Why? Because the Treasury said high immigration was good for the economy, but we knew it was not good for our country,” she said.
Migration – alongside the NHS and the future of the Conservative Party – has been one of the key discussion points of the contest.
Mr Jenrick promised he would take “five stands” on big issues in British politics, including a promise to “secure our borders”.
He has pledged to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and told the conference stage that it would be “impossible” to commit to deportations “unless we leave the European Convention on Human Rights and we free ourselves from Tony Blair’s Human Rights Act.”
“A cap alone won’t work,” he said. “This is about visas, not about foreign courts.
“Let me tell you something that my opponents probably won’t – this isn’t simple.
“We issued the visas because businesses need the staff for our care homes and our hospitals, to look after our families.
“So how do we square this circle? Well, we need to fix migration by fixing the gaps in education and skills, in transport and in housing, so that we can recruit at home and not abroad.”
Mr Cleverly pointed to the party’s record on immigration in his attack on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, who took a number of seats from the party in July.
“Never forget Reform didn’t deliver Brexit, we did,” he said.
“Reform didn’t cut immigration, I did.
“And mark my words, we will beat Reform by being the best version of ourselves, not a pale version of anyone else. So no mergers, no deals.”
After days of trying to persuade members and colleagues in Birmingham, the leadership candidates will be whittled down from four to two next week by the parliamentary party before the membership gets the final say.
The winner will be announced on November 2.
