Cameron: Immigration must be cut
According to The Sun, David Cameron has indicated that a future Conservative government would seek to cut immigration by 75%.
The Conservative Party leader said he did not want to allow the population to reach 70 million, as predicted by the Office for National Statistics, “because of pressure on public services”.
Mr Cameron told the BBC that current net immigration levels (the number of people migrating to Britain over and above those emigrating) are too high and that they needed to be heavily cut.
Although net immigration has declined over the last couple of years, as a result of the recession, Mr Cameron believes that levels are still too high and put a heavy burden on Britain’s infrastructure. Previous levels have been around 200,000, or 2 million immigrants over ten years.
Mr Cameron’s remarks come after Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, called for immigration to be controlled and announced his support for the cross party group Balanced Migration.
Mr Cameron’s call for a decrease in net immigration has been supported by Sir Andrew Green, the director of the independent campaign organisation Migration Watch, which seeks to limit immigration. But he has added that if he is serious about this issue he will make a concrete manifesto commitment.
Sir Andrew says, “Mr Cameron is on to something. The only means open to the Government to limit population is to limit immigration. If the Tory leader is serious he will put it into his party’s election manifesto — and it will be hugely popular.”
Nothing British has for a long time argued that immigration needs to be looked at and that it is a major concern for millions of ordinary people. We therefore support yesterday’s comments to Andrew Marr by Mr Cameron.
However, Westminster politicians have got to realise that for millions of hard-working people it is not enough to simply offer soundbites, more is needed on how they will address the issue of mass immigration. We hope that in the run up to the General Election all the mainstream parties provide more information to their candidates on how they will tackle immigration.
