The former immigration minister Robert Jenrick has described his ‘shock’ at hearing Rishi Sunak’s argument.
Former immigration minister has slammed Rishi Sunak after revealing that the former Prime Minister made a shocking argument in favour of keeping migration numbers high.
Speaking on a BBC documentary this evening, Robert Jenrick made the claim that Mr Sunak argued in favour of breaking the Tories’ manifesto pledge to slash net migration because it would harm inflation.
Mr Jenrick revealed: “He put forward the argument that mass migration was a good thing because undercutting British workers’ wages was helping to bring down inflation.”
“I was shocked, and I completely disagreed with that approach.”
His Home Office colleague Suella Braverman added that the broader objection she received from Mr Sunak was that “if we were going to cut immigration then we would be cutting revenue.”
Robert Jenrick made the claim on a BBC documentary this evening (Image: BBC)
She added: “We had issued 1.1 million work and study visas, we had never done that before.”
“So this was totally at odds with our manifesto pledge, and an undermining of the Brexit referendum vote in 2016.
“I made all of these points to Rishi Sunak, he promised me that he would support me in the measures that would be needed.
“It became quickly apparent that those were false promises.”
Ms Braverman added that in the face of claims that halving immigration to 300,000 would lose the Treasury £3 billion, she argued: “Just let me, it’s so easy – we don’t even have to pass an act of parliament.”
“We don’t need to worry about the House of Lords, we don’t need to worry about the European Court of Human Rights.
“But as long as the PM refused to support me, my hands were tied.”
Mr Sunak defended high immigration to colleagues (Image: Getty)
Mr Jenrick added that he came to conclusion that many others in Cabinet were merely interested in “symbolic” policy, recounting one meeting in late November when he looked around the Cabinet room and felt he was the only person there “genuinely pressing for a policy that would work.”
“I left that meeting, I walked out into Downing Street, and at that point I knew that I’d have to resign.”
The BBC documentary, entitled ‘Immigration: How British Politics Failed’, also saw interviews with Tony Blair, David Cameron and Nigel Farage.
Mr Cameron himself confessed that over 14 years of Conservative rule the party “did not do enough over the time in government to bring in a proper controlled system for immigration that benefited Britain and that people had faith in.”
Mr Farage warned: “Just you watch: This issue is going to get bigger and bigger”.
