Net migration 'far too high' since Brexit due to 'wrong decisions' taken by Tory government, minister tells LBC

3 October 2023, 18:51 | Updated: 3 October 2023, 18:53

By Kieran Kelly

@kellyjourno

Boris Johnson's government is to blame for net migration becoming "far too high" since Brexit, the immigration minister has told LBC.

"Net migration is far too high in this country… there were wrong choices taken when we left the EU… by Boris Johnson and his administration. We now need to correct that," Robert Jenrick told LBC's Andrew Marr.

It comes after the Home Secretary Suella Braverman warned that a "hurricane of migration" is on the way to the UK as she labelled the Human Rights Act the 'Criminal Rights Act'.

Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, live from the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, Mr Jenrick said: "I strongly agree with the Home Secretary in the view that net migration is far too high in this country."

He continued: "But when we left the European Union, and we did the great reform of taking back control of the levers of our legal migration system, we then proceeded to make choices which have led to a system which if anything is more liberal than the one that we had when we were part of the European Union."

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick joins Andrew Marr

As for who was responsible for net migration being "far too high" after 13 years of Tory Government, Mr Jenrick blamed the former prime minister Boris Johnson.

"I feel, and I think Suella would agree, that there were wrong choices taken when we left the European Union by Boris Johnson and his administration," Mr Jenrick said.

"And that has led to far too many people coming into the country, and that we now need to correct those."

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Speaking at the Tory Party Conference on Tuesday, Ms Braverman said current levels of immigration are "too high", referencing a "hurricane" of migration that looks set to land on our shores.

Her comments also criticised human rights laws during her keynote address from Manchester on Tuesday.

Pointing the finger of blame at Labour, she claimed that current immigration issues stem from equality laws, which she says were passed by previous Labour governments.

She said that the trend of immigration that brought her own parents to the UK was just a "gust" in comparison to the "hurricane" that's coming.