Sunak Accused Of Collaborating With Braverman Amid His Crack Down On Migration

After former Home Secretary Suella Braverman ordered the government to "act now", against the "unsustainable" migration numbers, the Telegraph newspaper said it has obtained a copy of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's crack-down on immigration plan.

The Telegraph reported it had seen a "copy of the pact" last weekend after official studies found that net migration into the UK reached an all-time high last year – measuring 745,000 people.

According to the Telegraph, the plan was agreed upon by both Sunak and Braverman last year.

Following her sacking, in a letter to the Sunak, Braverman noted that she had supported his promotion to Prime Minister because of "the firm assurances you gave me on key policy priorities", which focused on reducing "overall legal migration".

The former Home Secretary has since slammed to Tory Party for the migration numbers being "far too high".

It is "a slap in the face to the British public who have voted to control and reduce migration at every opportunity", Braverman said, going on to note: "The pressure on housing, the NHS, schools, wages, and community cohesion, is unsustainable. When do we say: enough is enough?"

While working as Home Secretary, Braverman recalled that she had asked the government to close the graduate visa route and to put a cap on health and social care visas.

"Brexit gave us tools. It's time to use them," she declared.

Last week, Robert Jenrick, the Immigration Minister for the UK, said that Brexit has allowed the UK government to have complete "control of the level of migration into the country".

"And it's up to us how we use that," he added.

Jenrick also noted that the government must consider radical policy changes if the migration figures are to fall significantly as Sunak has promised.

Agreeing with Braverman, when questioned about the net migration figures on Monday, Sunak said that the number of people arriving in the UK was "too high" and it must "come down to sustainable levels".

According to the prime minister, reducing the number of family members that have been permitted to join foreign postgraduate students in the UK, had been a significant move.

Sunak declared that restricting relatives of students from arriving in the UK, is "the single toughest measure that anyone has taken to bring down the levels of legal migration in a very long time".

The Telegraph also reported that in the copy of the collaborative migration plan, there was a proposal to raise the salary threshold for skilled foreign workers from £26,000 to £40,000.

As well as Sunak's 'stop the small boats' campaign, the Immigration Minister proposed stopping those who work in the health and social care sector from bringing their families to the UK.

According to the Office for National Statistics, with an increase of NHS workers arriving from overseas, discouraging people from moving to the UK for employment in the health and social care field would put a huge amount of pressure on the NHS – which is already chronically understaffed.

While Sunak did not comment on the proposal, the prime minister's allies confirmed that he had agreed to implement the four-point migration plan.

Braverman and Sunak's migration plan also suggested other strategies to reduce the net migration figures, including closing down the graduate route entirely and prioritising student visa applicants who would study at Russell Group universities.

The Russel Group is defined as an association of 24 universities within the UK. The universities are each listed as world-class and research-intensive facilities.

Labour Leader Keir Starmer called the recent net migration figures, 745,000, "shockingly high".

The influx of migrants arriving in the UK demonstrates "a failure not just of immigration, but also of asylum and of the economy", Starmer added.