Nigel Farage berated the Tories on BBC Question Time

Most recent estimates show that net migration to the UK hit nearly one million in the 12 months to June 2023.

The Tories responded to the latest figures by saying that “immigration remains far too high” and is putting pressure on public services.

But in an appearance on the BBC panel show, Mr Farage blamed the Conservatives for allowing the number of arrivals to get out of control.

Pointing furiously, he told Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Kevin Hollinrake: “You haven’t got a cat’s chance in hell of winning the next general election.

“Shame on you for what you’ve done. It was wilful, it was deceptive, it was deliberate and it was wrong.”

Pressed by host Fiona Bruce on whether immigration had also brought the benefit of greater diversity to the UK, the Reform UK leader said: “The problem with greater diversity is if that if you do it in too big a level, you get division. And we’ve seen that in many of our towns.

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“Selective immigration can be very good for diversity, very good for the economy … and you could argue that for decades, up until the early 2000s, it was working really well.

“But now, not only is it a catastrophe for people’s way of life, not only does it deny them access to services, mass immigration is making Britain poorer

He added that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s failure to list immigration as one of his main priorities in the Government’s “Plan for Change” shows that “it is only going to get worse”.

After hitting a record high in 2022-23, net migration dropped 20% to 728,000 in the year to June 2024.

Labour said the latest migration figures showed the Government had started the “hard graft” of tackling the issue, and was “cleaning up the Conservatives‘ mess”.