Good news on immigration! The recent figures released by the ONS show a 20 per cent fall in long-term net-migration. Of course, it’s true that the Conservatives in their time in office presided over record levels of immigration. And, granted, the earlier ONS figures had to be massively revised upwards. But surely it’s still something to celebrate? The ONS say the fall is largely because of declining numbers of dependants arriving on study visas, to which we have Suella Braverman to thank after she changed the rules in May 2023, removing (mostly) the right of international students to bring dependants to live in Britain.

Home Office insiders say she was blocked from doing a lot more and had to fight tooth and nail to even achieve those modest reforms, which also stopped international students from being able to drop out and get a job before they’d finished their course — something which unbelievably had been allowed to happen under Priti Patel’s time in the Home Office. Incidentally, the fact that Braverman actually had to fight to end the rights of foreign students to work on a student visa says a lot about Sunak’s commitment to reducing immigration.

As Home Secretary, Braverman spent ages crafting (anti) immigration policy. It was she who nagged the PM to read the countless papers she sent No10 about how to reduce numbers, and lobbied hard within government to get support — burning through her political capital by trying to achieve party policy. But, alas, she was constantly fobbed off. We all know, and have known for a while, that high-immigration-Britain is by design, not accident — something even Keir Starmer is now saying.

But what’s interesting is that the ONS cited the later changes made by her successor James Cleverly as the reason for the fall in long-term migration. Nobody actually thinks it was Cleverly’s doing, most credit the then junior Minister Robert Jenrick — sent to bell Braverman at the Home Office — who threatened to resign if Braverman’s full reforms were not enacted. But after the proposals were announced, he resigned anyway. 

It seems Jenrick genuinely was radicalised by the Home Office, and did want immigration sorting out, but it’s also fair to say he had at least one eye on an upcoming leadership election. And he played it beautifully, if very obviously. By goal-hanging and turning against his boss in No 10, he managed to score the winner and take all the credit.  As for Braverman, it just goes to show that you really can do anything if you don’t try to claim the credit. Just not, it seems, get into the shadow cabinet. How anyone thinks Priti Patel in the shadow cabinet is going to help the Tories fend off Nigel Farage is beyond PS.