Party pledges mean nothing unless mass immigration is cut

RISHI Sunak's snap election announcement has R brought the major par ties out in full force.

- Esther Krakue

So far, both Labour and the Conservatives have been drip-feeding half-baked policy ideas and empty platitudes in the hopes of galvanising their base and bringing undecided voters on side.

But if the general mood is anything to go by, this election is already a foregone conclusion. Labour will win, the Tories will seek to do as much damage control as possible, and it will all be business as usual while they continue to avoid the elephant in the room: immigration.

This is what the vast majority of voters really care about. It's the major issue of the election campaign. The latest YouGov polling has put immigration as one of the top three concerns for all voters across all parties, with immigration ranking as the top concern for Tories.

Who can blame them? Virtually every policy proposal from the major parties is contingent on controlling immigration. Since 1997, more than seven million immigrants have settled in the UK, with two million arriving in the last two and a half years alone.

And what has the country got to show for it? We are still waiting for the bustling, dynamic economy that the influx of "high-skilled" labour promised to deliver. Yet so far, in many parts of the country, we've had the complete opposite. And it's not difficult to understand why.