Kemi’s right about one thing – Brexit isn’t working

As new figures reveal the post-Brexit immigration system has driven immigration to ‘unprecedented levels’, Femi Oluwole looks at the blame game being played by the Tory party... who (lest we forget) were in charge of Brexit in the first place

Have you ever watched a TV show and thought: “It doesn’t make sense for that character to still be there”? Their story arc is complete; so the plot just keeps repeating because the showrunners love the actor too much to fire them.

That’s what it feels like watching politicians like Kemi Badenoch say their immigration-slashing Brexit agenda has been a decade of failure – and that that’s why we should vote them back in.

The Tory leader is using phrases like, “time to tell the truth”, yet earlier this month, she admitted “we made promises without knowing how we were going to deliver them, as we did on Brexit”. And today, she says, “we ended free movement but the system that replaced it isn’t working”, pointing to high levels of immigration, pressure on public services, wages and welfare.

But how could that happen? A Brexit that was supposed to cut immigration, help our NHS and pull people out of poverty, doing the exact opposite?

In 2016, politicians like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson said EU immigration was crippling our welfare system and public services. Also in 2016, Farage said: “There is nothing we can do to stop unlimited numbers of people coming to this country and enjoying the same rights as all the rest of us”.

But in 2017, I pointed out to him that EU free movement only let people stay here long-term if they were rich enough and had enough medical insurance so as to not be a burden on the welfare state, or they were coming to for a job. He replied: “In theory, Femi, you’re right. Under European treaties there are restrictions that can be place”, which means he lied in 2016. I then said told him that without EU rules, “leaving the EU would mean more immigration”.

Today, the Office of National Statistics says “the post-Brexit immigration system has driven” immigration to “unprecedented levels”, with net migration to the UK hitting a record 906,000 in 2023. The ONS figures indicate net migration has since dropped by 20 percent and stood at 728,000 in the latest period for the year to June 2024. Keir Starmer held an urgent press conference to talk about the figures.

So, as you watch Farage use today’s immigration figures to score points against the government, know that he was warned this would happen if he supported Brexit – but he did it anyway.

But what’s the issue? EU migrant workers contributed £2,300 more in tax than the average UK citizen and were twice as likely to be doctors than Brits, so immigration has historically made us richer and healthier.

The Office of Budget Responsibility says the post-Brexit immigration system has been less labour focused. Bluntly put, post-Brexit immigration has been less geared towards helping the economy, in terms of our labour shortages, tax revenue and ageing population. The Nuffield Trust confirmed that Brexit makes it harder for the NHS to hire EU staff. The Road Haulage Association says Brexit is making their driver shortage worse, which makes supply chains more expensive. The Bank of England has confirmed that this Brexit inflation is happening across the economy.

And we were promised that cutting immigration would raise wages as British workers would be able to demand decent wages from employers without being undercut by cheap foreign labour. So you would think that as business and trade secretary, Kemi would have delivered a system where no worker could be exploited on low wages, regardless of where they’re from. Instead those same Brexiter politicians passed laws to prevent workers going on strike to demand better pay.

Farage even accused striking teachers and nurses of being part of a left-wing conspiracy. But this is predictable, given that politicians like Badenoch have always voted to restrict workers unions, thus weakening the ability to demand better wages.

And we know post-Brexit wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living, because the OBR said the last few years saw the sharpest fall in living standards since records began, and the Bank Of England says Brexit is costing the average household £1000 a year. And that’s one of the reasons millennials and Gen Z are avoiding having kids, with the UK birthrate at a 50-year low. Not great for our already aging population.

So the Tories’ anti-immigration Brexit agenda has left the UK poorer, older and sicker. And who is surprised? Every time the Tories have gone after immigration, whether it’s spending £169,000 per refugee on their Rwanda policy or Brexit in general, they’ve left this country poorer.

So when Badenoch says the post-Brexit immigration system “isn’t working” and Farage says that the Brexit he sold based on an immigration lie “has failed”, they’re not wrong. But to still be trying to use immigration to score votes means they think we hate foreigners so much, we’ve developed amnesia.