UK Special Coverage Former Tory Chairman: The Conservatives Must Tackle Immigration to Survive The future of the Tory party depends on fixing the Boris Wave. UK Special Coverage The United Kingdom’s election of 2024 was perhaps the most cataclysmic of the postwar era—after all, we saw the annihilation and humiliation of a multi-century party. In the aftermath of the election, there were whispers of a recovery, but as time marches on, rather than recovery, it seems that the Conservatives are entering palliative care. As a man of moderate politics, I must say that the death of a mainstream, moderate, center-right party is quite worrying; I certainly am not a Faragist in spirit. I do not believe that Nigel Farage is an honest man. Nor do I believe that he is healthy for the future of British politics. It was in this depressing atmosphere that I decided to write my upcoming book about the 14 years of Conservative government and what led to the situation that the right finds itself in.  One of my first interviewees was Dominic Johnson, Lord Johnson of Lainston, former chairman of the Conservative party, who generously agreed not only to an interview but to answer quite politically awkward questions—thus I must say that, any policy-based disagreements aside, this deserves much recognition as a number of Conservatives I queried weren’t particularly keen on publicly discussing the more sensitive issues such as nationality quotas.  My first question was about why immigration surged so massively under the Boris Johnson government. So insane was this surge that in common culture it has become known as “the Boris Wave.” Lord Johnson’s answer was that he and many others in mainstream politics had held the belief for perhaps 30 years that immigration was good for the economy; that “native Brits go to university” and hence there are more menial jobs that are left over—and that immigration was necessary in order to fill said jobs.  This is a belief that has always been prevalent in British society, regardless of whom you speak to or in what party; Zack Polanski recently expressed similar sentiments regarding immigration and care workers. However, the issue with this argument is that it ignores the millions of economically inactive British citizens. It is not in the national interest to import millions of foreigners and then house them, house their dependents, provide them with medical care, provide their children with education and provide their own parents with elderly and disability care merely so that these people can work as carers or Deliveroo drivers. Johnson did point out in his initial answer that evidence is emerging that mass low-skilled migration is ultimately not financially beneficial for the country.  If it was noted that immigration was too high, why did it take so long for it to be changed? After all, the Boris Wave was not a six-month event or even a 12-month event; it lasted for just under four years. Johnson’s answer to this was that there was a “slow-moving system”; to some extent this is probably true. The prohibition on carers importing dependents, introduced by Rishi Sunak, was only shown to have worked on depressing the amount of care work visas a full year after the election. The Labour government will, in total, spend a year to reform primary legislation around nationality and Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) time length. The problem therefore seems to be prevalent across party lines.  The problem with blaming a “slow-moving system,” though, is that this is exactly how you end up with Faragist types wanting to engage in slash-and-burn maneuvers towards the civil service and bureaucracy, rather than steady reform. Those of us who believe in due process have largely pro-immigration types to blame if it is ever done away with. It is also doubtful whether the “system” alone can be blamed; the surge in immigration had become apparent within a year—therefore it would be more honest to say that Boris and Rishi lacked the willpower to tackle the issue. I also raised the matter of increasing the length of residency required for ILR to 10 years instead of five. ILR is permanent residency—it allows the recipient to remain in the United Kingdom perpetually without a visa. It also grants the recipient all the financial and social benefits that citizenship would grant them, such as the ability to claim social welfare or to run for political office. In relation to ILR reform, Johnson said that he would “definitely support” this as “citizenship had become far too easy to obtain.” As part of his answer, he pointed out that the native citizens of a land are often the inheritors of previous paid dues; for example, Johnson’s own grandfather spent five years in a German prisoner of war camp. There is an interesting moral point to raise here; is the grandson of someone who risked his life for the country more likely to have the nation’s interests at heart than a newly fledged citizen who was living in the slums of Mumbai merely five years ago?  The argument does not necessarily need a causal relationship with race (I happen to have relations who spent their time in the same army as Lord Johnson’s grandfather.) Upon introspection, I do believe that the grandson of a war veteran probably does, on average, have fewer and weaker foreign ties and therefore a greater interest in the success of the nation than a South Asian or Nigerian immigrant. Perhaps citizenship could be tied to some form of compulsory military service.  The question then became, if we were in agreement, why did the Conservatives do nothing about this in their 14 years of government. The Conservatives could have extended the time required for ILR and citizenship. Instead, we had more citizenship grants under the Conservatives than any other government in British history. To this, Johnson said that “his colleagues were not strong enough” and that he was “deeply embarrassed.”  If the Conservatives are to survive their embarrassment at the polls though, something needs to be done retrospectively about the Boris Wave. There are those who predict that the Conservatives are dead, that they’ve had their time in the sun, and that it is now Reform’s day on the political stage. I don’t necessarily believe that this is correct. Reform remains a single-issue party. Farage remains a single-issue man. If immigration as an issue fades into the background, then so will Reform. Those who disagree would be wise to look at how UKIP has performed in elections post-2016. The issue of the Boris Wave must be solved. On that note, I asked, “What can be done retrospectively?”  Several things were discussed, such as retroactively increasing the time length for indefinite leave to remain from five to 10 years for those who are already on the five-year route. Johnson said “it’s fine” to increase it to 10 for someone who had already done four years and had a year remaining, but that it would be “difficult” in taking away ILR from those who had already been granted it.  A politically feasible solution to this would be to increase the time length that is required to apply for citizenship following the grant of ILR. Currently, the time required is merely one year for the majority of applicants. Those who are married to British citizens may apply instantaneously. Parliament is sovereign, and tomorrow it may decide that the time length you spend on ILR has to be at least five years (as in the United States.) In addition to this, we could decide that citizenship is tied to having native (C2) fluency in English, being married to a British citizen, and having done national service. The conundrum, raised by Johnson, could be fixed by creating an extra set of hoops to jump through at the final stage.  At this point, I also raised the issue of the nationality of our immigrants. I mentioned that in the United States; there was an Immigration and Nationality act, so no more than 7 percent of their visas can go to one ethnicity. In the UK, 20 percent of visas go to Indians alone (they make up the single largest immigrant group). There was strong support for this, with Lord Johnson telling me that “visa quotas have a lot of logic to them” and that otherwise immigration “swamps local communities.”  The fact that there are Conservatives, including a former party chairman, who are willing to have a conversation about this is a major positive signal. It is worth noting that visa quotas are something that can be done retrospectively as well. If tomorrow it is decided that no single nationality can be awarded more than 7 percent of ILR grants, then we have effectively created a visa quota for the previous five years. If the Conservative party is going to survive, then it is in its own interests to make sure that the problem of the Boris Wave vanishes, and there seems to be no easier route for this than ending the domination of our country’s immigration debate by a handful of nationalities.  A key part of immigration, which we also discussed, was the nation’s asylum system. I pointed out that the largest contributor of asylum claimants was Pakistan, a nation that isn’t even a warzone. I proposed that for nations not at war, we could simply have a full prohibition on asylum claims. Johnson agreed and stated there should be a “blanket prohibition” and that the asylum system was being “abused massively.” This sadly was one of the easy goals missed by the Conservative party, which spent a large amount of energy and political capital on difficult issues such as the small boats problem but failed to even look at the fact that the majority of asylum claimants had entered the country on a visa. There could have easily been a “blanket prohibition” on asylum claims from Pakistan, and we could have then refused to issue student visas, visitor visas or business visas until Pakistan took back its asylum claimants; instead, the nation was led down a wild goose chase regarding Rwanda.  Another issue of Rwanda-style corruption plaguing the nation at the moment is the ever-expanding welfare state. I pointed out that 20 percent of all new cars sold in the UK are sold on the motability scheme and 23 percent of working age adults are allegedly disabled. I asked if the definition of disabled is perhaps too broad and if it should be restricted more towards physical ailments rather than low-grade mental health issues. Lord Johnson agreed that this was a major problem that needed to be addressed, terming large amounts of the public being on welfare as “awful for the social fabric.” There was a distinction drawn between those who have severe disabilities and those with ADHD getting subsidized cars; the latter was termed as “ridiculous”. There is an important moral distinction to be made here. It is not wrong to be severely disabled; no one can seriously argue that a person with quadriplegic paralysis is at fault for not having a job. At the same time it is quite different for someone with dyslexia or ADHD to willingly avoid any serious attempt to look for work and go onto the dole for life.  As we were in agreement, the obvious follow up question was why did the Conservatives not tackle the issue during their years in government. In relation to disability fraud, Johnson admitted that the Conservative party “totally failed to reform that” and he also said that “we did not have the guts to tackle” the issue. This latter answer is one that is often given in response to the question “why didn’t you do it?” – I heard it during this interview; but to be honest I’ve heard a variation of this phrase in almost any conversation I’ve had with a Conservative after July 2024. I don’t know whether it’s a question that the Conservatives can ever come up with a more pleasant answer for. Fortunately for them, most people have short memories. Provided that the party survives, the question will be irrelevant within the decade.  The Tory party can be revived, although I do not know whether it will be. They acknowledge that they went wrong, and that severe measures must be taken to get the party out of the hole it is in. Only God knows whether these steps will be taken. The Conservatives should, at the very least, propose dynamic solutions: policies such as nationality caps, lengthening ILR time, and tying citizenship to national service are interesting and bold policy proposals that have yet been adopted by Reform.  At this point the Conservatives really need to be trendsetters. Unfortunately for them, their policies actually need to be implemented, and soon. If they are not implemented today, Reform’s raison d’etre will continue—and if it exists at the time of the election, the Conservatives face extermination. We are in a strange situation in which the survival of the Tory party depends upon the success of a Labour government in tackling the Boris Wave. The post Former Tory Chairman: The Conservatives Must Tackle Immigration to Survive appeared first on The American Conservative.