Sunak will struggle to make boats equal votes in 2024

Net migration to the UK will rise to a record level when official figures are published next Thursday, up from 504,000 to more than 700,000 a year. There have been reports the figure could rocket to 1 million, but the suspicion at Westminster is that this might have more to do with expectation management than reality

- ANDREW GRICE

In the margins of the G7 summit in Japan yesterday, Rishi Sunak sought to avoid talking about legal migration, repeatedly trying to divert his media interviews to the illegal variety of people crossing the Channel in small boats.

No wonder: when the 2019 Tory manifesto pledged to reduce immigration, the annual net figure stood at 226,000. Sunak said legal migration is “too high” but declined to set a target or timescale for bringing it down, knowing the Tories have failed woefully to achieve their previous goals.

Although the nerves of right-wing Tories are on edge ahead of the new figures, immigration became less of a priority for voters after Brexit, with policy under the UK’s control rather than subject to EU free movement rules. But that won’t stop Sunak’s Tory critics saying the new figures show migration is out of control.

His allies cling to the hope that by next year’s general election, he will be able to point to falling legal and illegal migration. The legal type will be easier to reduce. It has been swelled by arrivals from Ukraine and Hong Kong, which enjoy public support. Indeed, Britons are more compassionate than the antiimmigration Tory right bargains for; most people want a combination of “control and compassion”.