Jenrick joins Braverman in attack on Sunak over legal migration

Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick has become the latest high-profile Tory MP to criticise Rishi Sunak for failing to take legal migration seriously, accusing the Prime Minister of refusing to discuss the policy.

Mr Jenrick claimed both he and former home secretary Suella Braverman pressed the importance of the issue on Mr Sunak but he “didn’t want to talk about it”.

The former minister said he had set out the case for reducing legal migration to Mr Sunak but the PM “took the view” that the issue “didn’t matter”.

His intervention echoes similar comments made by Ms Braverman just four days ago, who accused Mr Sunak of not caring about bringing down legal migration figures in an interview on Panorama on Monday.

In an interview on GB News, aired on Friday night, Mr Jenrick said: “I didn’t feel that the Prime Minister understood the importance of legal migration to the British public.

“It was an issue that I have cared about for a long time. I shared that conviction with Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary at the time.

“She and I met the Prime Minister approximately every fortnight to talk about Home Office issues like stopping the boats, like security and policing.

“Never once did we have a conversation about legal migration because the Prime Minister didn’t want to talk about it.”

He added: “I think that the Prime Minister, like others, took the view that legal migration didn’t matter and that Brexit, if it was anything, was about taking back control but not bringing down the numbers. I disagree with that.”

Mr Jenrick called for “a change of course”, warning the UK was “clearly going down the wrong path” with regard to record net migration levels.

“In fact, the numbers crossing the channel are currently increasing. So whatever happens before or after the next general election, what matters to me is that we have a fundamentally different approach to some of these key issues.

Mr Jenrick was a close ally of Mr Sunak and was appointed immigration minister to oversee the Government’s illegal migration plan, among other measures.

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In December he resigned and accused Mr Sunak of not going far enough with his Rwanda asylum plan, which is designed to crack down on illegal migration.

Mr Sunak has said cutting illegal arrivals, and stopping the small boats crossing, is key priority of his premiership.

But Mr Jenrick’s intervention ramps up pressure on the beleaguered Prime Minister who has already faced criticism for not treating high levels of legal migration with the same urgency.

He was criticised over the same issue by Ms Braverman in a interview with the BBC.

She said on Monday that the PM had refused to meet with her for a year to discuss how to reduce the number of people moving to the UK legally.

Speaking on BBC’s Panorama, Ms Braverman said: “I think the Prime Minister has not necessarily assumed that it’s an important issue for the British people.

“I struggled myself, as home secretary, even to have a meaningful conversation with him about it. I was left to written correspondence on several occasions throughout a period of 12 months, putting forward policy proposals. But he refused to talk to me.”

It comes as Mr Sunak faces increasing disquiet from Tory MPs some of whom have called for him to be replaced as leader.

A No 10 spokesperson said Mr Sunak “has been unambiguously clear that the current levels of migration to the UK are far too high”.

They added: “That’s why last year, we announced the biggest ever package of measures any Prime Minister has delivered to reduce net migration, meaning that 300,000 people who came to the UK legally last year will no longer be able to come.”

The spokesperson said the PM held meetings with Home Office ministers throughout 2023 and stressed attendees could, and did, raise any issue including legal migration.