The “Boriswave” was one of the most extraordinary self-inflicted political and policy disasters in living memory. Having been elected on a mandate to “Get Brexit Done”, Boris Johnson used his new freedoms to unleash an unprecedented wave of immigration.
As the home secretary who presided over that policy, one can understand why Priti Patel continues to defend it. But if Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is to have any hope of winning a hearing from the voters, she cannot let Patel do so from the front bench.
There are two big problems with performances like the one the Shadow Foreign Secretary put in during her interview with The Sun yesterday, in which she refused to apologise for the huge influx of immigrants that took place on her watch. The first is political: to have any chance of winning back angry ex-Tory voters, Badenoch needs to demonstrate that the Conservative Party has changed, and that it is prepared to own up to what it got wrong in government.
It’s hard to think of what could cut more deeply against that than having the guilty men and women of the old regime using positions on the shadow front bench to defend the most execrable parts of their record.
So far, Badenoch’s response has not been nearly robust enough. In fact, within just two sentences by her spokesperson sits a huge contradiction. “As Kemi said when she committed to a hard cap on visas in November, under her leadership the Conservative Party will tell the truth about the mistakes we made,” said the spokesperson. “While the last Conservative government may have tried to control numbers, we did not deliver.”
But the last Conservative government did not try to control numbers. It sent numbers through the roof, as a matter of policy. What looks superficially like a bold break with the past is actually the opposite: a lie to spare the blushes of the previous government, senior members of which now sit in the shadow cabinet.
The second problem is that Patel’s defence is, in policy terms, total nonsense. She insists the new arrivals were all “skilled workers” — but her Home Office set the salary threshold for “skilled workers” at £25,600, which was well below the average salary. She blames the pandemic and the strain on the NHS, yet healthcare recruitment makes up only a tiny fraction of immigration.
Most egregious is the social care visa, an insane policy that imported minimum-wage workers with no age cap, no restrictions on dependents, and no lifetime costings. A single worker could bring over five dependents and become a net fiscal loss at once; the average Zimbabwean care home recruit brought 10.
They can’t even blame the Blob, although of course Johnson has tried. The Migration Advisory Committee explicitly favoured “funding social care to a level that enables higher wages” rather than the mass import of minimum-wage care labour.
There’s no defending the Boriswave. The Johnson government was elected in 2019 on a promise to bring numbers down by a newly-minted coalition of voters from so-called “left behind” areas; he then doubled net immigration because he needed “hands to do the work” in order — and this is the best bit — to prevent upward pressure on wages.
Badenoch has to disown the Boriswave, outright — and honestly. She needs to say that it jacked up numbers, and why. There is otherwise no reason for angry voters to give the Tories another hearing on immigration.
Such a reckoning would be humiliating for Patel. But having come sixth out of six in the leadership contest, she is a political ghost anyway, tethered to the front bench only by a dearth of alternatives. Like all ghosts, she must wear the chains she forged in life, link by link, and visa by visa. The weight of those chains has already sunk her leadership ambitions; Badenoch must ensure it doesn’t sink the whole party.
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SubscribeBye-bye Tories, it was fun, sort-of, while it lasted. Who can forget Alan Clark, Cecil Parkinson, Jonathan Aitken and the greatest of them all Boris, swinging from his trapeze wire.
It was extraordinary just how unrepentant and entitled Patel came across in that interview with Harry Cole. Even acknowledging the lack of talent on those Conservative benches in Parliament, I’d still get rid of her sharpish if I were Badenoch. If Badenoch doesn’t get rid of Patel, we can only assume she agrees with Patel on this issue.
“Badenoch must ensure it doesn’t sink the whole party”
The whole party has been a drunken incoherent raft for quite a while. When it hit the shores is debatable, but that it has been stuck there for an awfully long time is not. It is a much too big an ask. There is no ship to sink. It is stuck where it is, badly damaged, its only worth the loot on board, whilst its remaining crew, slowly, one by one, start walking into oblivion after one last public bitching in front of a dwindling old audience.
This specific article highlights the incoherent lies with regards to immigration. A few short years before, we had MP’s actively sabotaging the referendum in the shade, in the spotlight, reaffirming their respect for democracy. Shame. Remember Bori’s net zero pledge in 2019? Yeah, me neither.
Since Thatcher, we have had numerous clowns extolling the virtues of small state and free markets. Whilst increasing state, expenditure, taxes and insane regulations. Security (controlled immigration just one aspect) and justice both an afterthought. The loss of public confidence in twenty years is staggering.
Just from a political perspective, you would have thought that after twenty years mimicking new labour, they would have at least lost the lazy trope of being the nasty party. Not even that. They have stood for nothing for far too long. Spineless people can not easily be characterised. It is the same with party machines.
The loot, the current MP’s, should join the parties most suited to them, the SD or Reform. And spare us any more undignified time wasting squabbles. I used to think that a hostile takeover was the best strategy for Reform. No longer. The brand is dead and toxic. Let us respect their death wish.
They are the problem, not the solution, and my only ask is not something unrealistic from Mrs Badenoch, it is simply to step out of the way.
Tories and the Right can’t do it. They can’t admit the contradictions in their economic policies. They can’t admit they don’t want to empower more lower paid British workers. They don’t want to admit they spent 14years talking about improving Social care, which would have involved better wages, and did nothing – because they’ll want to weaponise it again if Labour tries to sort it. They can’t admit their Farming friends rely on it to pick our fruit and veg whilst arguing about paying their share in inheritance tax contribution. They can’t admit half the University places would disappear without overseas fees and they don’t want to have to raise alternative monies for more vocational training.
And most of all they and majority on the Right don’t want to sort the problem anyway. It’s their ‘go-to’ to create rage they can use to gain power.
Agreed. The Tories can’t do much to compete with Labour because they are not Right; the Tories are the same woke-infused people as those in power now and they are most definitely not Right. At the moment, today, there is nobody who could form an alternative style of government. It might come in the future but will take at least 4 years to build and probably more.
So, what would this new Right try to achieve? Hopefully, it would not try to go back in time to some halçyon days of wonderful exploits of derring-do. Manufacturing will no longer make us rich and the days of financial control have gone. Perhaps the only strongpoint of Britain is that its language is now the language of the world – which is why we are also discussing today the future of the Humanities in our universities.
Right, and that includes Reform, also got to say how they’ll solve those policy dilemmas. Thus far – silence. Even on principles they are silent as one could excuse not having detailed policy at this moment. The Right is caught in a total bind because the contradictions pull in different directions.
Rage only ever gets one so far.
Left means that everybody shares. It doesn’t matter how many people there are – everybody shares. So as GDP stays constant, GDP per capita decreases. Our services, like your employers, can’t cope any more but those working still expect pay rises to try to increase their share of the GDP. Surely, by trying to force equality, an aim which is impossible to achieve, those with the least bargaining power will fall by the wayside. That means old people. So your employers have worked for 75 years to keep people alive and extend our projected lifespan, only to give it back again for lack of money. Abject failure. Would it have been better not to start in the first place? For those people now aged 40 or below, will there be an old-age pension?
The Right has to fight this decay but how? Industry no longer provides work for millions of people in order to collect billions in taxes. Drug companies will not employ huge numbers of people and if they do, they will move offshore. The Green jobs are not real – it is just a catchphrase but doesn’t mean anything. (About 90% of our offshore wind turbines and their maintenance belong to other countries.) That is why there is no Right.
Bit of a pre-pubescent view of the many philosophical strata on the Left and what exactly ‘equality’ means if you don’t mind me saying CW. If that’s as far as it goes for you then I can see you’re going to be easy meat for the alternative charlatans. Nobody has been trying to enforce equality. There have been attempts to make life more meritocratic and that means folks have similar opportunity. If you want to be un-meritocratic then just be honest about it and say you want to maintain advantage if you have it.
They’ll be an Old Age pension for those aged 40 now. The Actuarial science just means the age and contributions will need to shift from that now. National demographics will also make a difference to that science which is why a mature discourse on immigration necessary. What we do or don’t do on immigration makes a difference to the equations.
If the Right wants to fight what it sees as decay it needs to start being honest about the trade-offs and stop seeking scapegoats to blame. It’s the oldest trick in the Book, but always eventually runs out of road. There is a legit Right leaning philosophy the UK needs, but for the moment it’s trapped with contradictions.
One more nail in the coffin of the Conservative Party. I think that’s a good thing now. It clears the ground for a new party of the Right, presumably Reform.
The Conservatives have made so many policy mistakes. Are they going to grovel and apologise for fhem all?
Net zero. High taxes. High debt. Woke stuff in schools. DEI mantra. Non- crimes. They supported and enacted all the Left”s terrible ideas..
I have thought that Badneoch has had more time than many commentators. I thought they were just desperate for material and found it annoying they couldn’t discuss Tory policies.
But if Badenoch doesn’t fire Patel, I think they now have a huge problem. Patel’s words will be hung like an albatross round her neck.
If I was a Tory I would just hang in there. Their only hope is that Reform implodes. If that were to happen they would get in next time just by being not as bad as Starmer.
I remember when Johnson was asked about woke and he said it was a good thing so planting himself firmly on the Left.
England has to reject all the dogmas of the Left to just have the chance to thrive again.
I’m not optimistic at all.
Nailed it. The conservatives are toast if they do not repudiate their whole record on this.
Admitting what they did is not enough. Additionally they need to offer to prosecute Johnson for high treason, and to publicly tar and feather every cabinet secretary from 2010 onwards.
“Boriswave” sounds like a new iteration of electronic dance music.
The effect was like that of a “blastwave” which is the air pressure shockwave generated after a nuke explodes, and it flattens everything around it within a radius of several miles.
Johnson was never fit for high office which he so ably demonstrated during his tenure. It says volumes about the Members who still think he’s the Messiah. And then continued with their lunacy to elect Liz Truss.
The hilarious thing is Boris probably still sees another chance to take the prize. Which, as we’ve established, is a bucket of vomit.
If Truss had been allowed to implement the strategy she won the leadership election on we would not now be suffering Herr Starmer and his incompetent crew.
Henry, you say they must admit why they introduced the Boriswave. What is the reason in your view?
I don’t fully subscribe to the Badenoch as Gove’s sock-puppet theory, but it seems clear KB’s desperate not to overly disappoint her One-Nation wing. It’s why she refuses to commit to leaving the ECHR (I honestly think the ‘no policy yet for anything‘ schtick is cover for this). It’s why she brings a rubber dagger to a gunfight every week at PMQs. It’s why she always looks permanently annoyed – the prize she wanted was obviously a bucket of vomit, and now she’s got the bucket… she seems surprised it’s full of vomit.
Ha ha ha. ‘Engineer’ your way out of that.
Look, the Tories aren’t toast just because they’re crap (although they are). They are toast because, since the 2010 coalition love-in, they’ve become two different parties, unhappily cohabiting like long-divorced spouses who can’t afford separate houses. Cameron parachuted in borderline Lib-Dems as MPs, the Tory version of the train from the Finland Station.
If the Tories are to die, they might as well go out in a blaze of glory like the Wild Bunch. Bad Bobby Jenrick and ‘Two Guns’ Suella should storm the Winter Palace, leading the blues into either oblivion or Nigel’s arms. There’s no other choice except a long, necrotizing death for the Conservative and Unionist Party.
If even a rube like me can see it, why can’t they?
Yeh, if some of these details were more broadly known about, I think the Tory party is finished.
The Boriswave is the inevitable consequence of ending EU freedom of movement. Instead of coming in from where home is just a cheap 2 hour flight away, new migrants are coming from further afield from where they are far more likely to bring their families with them. Also there are no countervailing numbers of British people moving to work and study abroad, since they have lost the right to do so. We even have people who own homes in the EU, but do not have the right to mov permanently and live in them, so cannot free up their UK homes.
The responsibility for this does not just sit with the party of government but with those who told the peoples of Christian Europe, 17.4 million times, that they are not wanted and not welcome here.
A false correlation, also known as a spurious correlation, is a mathematical relationship between two or more variables that appears to be causal but is not.
Er, as a sovereign nation couldn’t we cut down on both types of immigration? We don’t have to have a million a year, you know. Personally I’d like to see somewhere around zero.
Until you need something but there’s nobody to do it, at which point you squeal.
What precisely are the 10 Zimbabwean dependents going to do for me?
Indeed JE, and as so many of the arch exponents, Farage included, have said it’s been a ‘disaster’.
The fact we swopped lower level migration from similar culture countries to higher from the opposite just one of the great ironies the History books in the future will state.
The grimly amusing fact is Priti is supposed to be on the right of the party. They’re over, toast.
I just hope that BJ’s brainless supporters can finally see that their hero isn’t Churchill reborn; he’s a traitorous Davos man.
‘…She insists the new arrivals were all “skilled workers”…’
I don’t think, there is anymore, a single f*****g petrol station from Chichester to Chester, that is not now manned by an Indian with a scruffy haircut and a stubble, who has arrived in the last few years.
Such skills! So much talent! Hang on, I’m so dazzled by all the talent, I need to put my shades on!
….
Well Boris went east, and then failed to confess
That he went a bit too far;
So from Chichester to Chester
Men saw the Indian petrol station attendant ride;
….
(with apologies to Chesterton)
Conservatives love to call this the Boriswave in an attempt to exculpate themselves. Now that their punishment of their own voters for Brexit has landed them in the gutter, they are desperate to try to pretend it never took place.
What the Great Conservative Migration Scandal is, and should be called, is “Floodgate”
You can some that failure up with one word: betrayal.
The British are addicted to cheap foreign labour, and until reluctant idle workers on invalidity benefit and others are forced into the labour market, it will continue.