Alright then, just when General Election fatigue was setting in, Farage happens.
He says this is basically a single issue election.
So who do you trust? On legal migration, Reform want to hit Net Zero - that’s one in, one out.
They also want to introduce an immigrant tax to businesses - firms would pay a higher 20 per cent rate of National Insurance for foreign workers, up from the current 13.8 per cent. This has been described as unworkable in practice.
On illegal migration, they say they’d turn the boats around in the Channel.
The Labour Party is promising to reduce immigration.
On legal migration they say they’ll ban employers and agencies that break employment law from hiring overseas workers.
They say they want to reduce reliance on foreign workers and reform the points-based system.
Although it must be said there is little to no detail yet on what that means and Yvette Cooper, Shadow Home Secretary, is refusing to put a number on what she wants net migration to be.
On illegal immigration, Labour are pledging more Home Office staff to clear the backlog, establish a new Border Security Command to prosecute trafficking gangs and work more closely with EU.
However, scepticism has been raised due to a picture of Yvette Cooper with a sign saying Refugees Welcome, and Sir Keir Starmer winning a legal battle to ensure dubious asylum seekers have better access to taxpayer-funded benefits…
The Conservatives, on legal immigration they changed the rules for who qualifies for the Skilled Worker visa in April, with the minimum salary threshold rising substantially to £38,700 or the going rate for that role - whichever is higher.
Social care workers are also no longer allowed to bring dependants on their visa.
A list of jobs for which someone can be sponsored with a reduced minimum salary has been made shorter, and the minimum income to sponsor someone for a spouse/partner visa has risen from £18,600 to £29,000.
The scepticism here is that they’ve also been responsible for record levels of net migration.
On illegal immigration, everybody knows that Rwanda is their big deterrent, the illegal immigration bill should also mean that anybody who has entered Britain illegally recently will never be considered for asylum. Again, the problem here is credibility - will Rwanda happen? Will people be deported?
If this is the immigration election, who do you trust?
