The policing minister has said he believes his party will see movement in the polls and that voters can take a 300,000 reduction in legal migration ‘to the bank’ if the Conservatives win in July.
Speaking on GB News Chris Philp also blasted the person who threw a milkshake over Nigel Farage.
He said: “No one running for elected office should be attacked like that, presumably by some deranged leftie. In the last nine years that I’ve been an MP two of my colleagues, one Labour, one Conservative, have been murdered, so we have to take this seriously.
“The way we decide things in this country is through reasoned debate, discussion, argument, being questioned by the media. We don’t do politics by acts of violence and throwing a milkshake at someone is one end of a spectrum that has a very, very dark end point. And that’s why I’m glad police have made arrests: we should have zero tolerance.
“Political candidates do expose themselves to the public as they should. I mean, the whole point of an election, the whole point of being in public service is to meet people the whole time, talk to people, listen. I always listen to people in Croydon, what they're saying, and then take that back to Parliament.
“And that's why this kind of incident is troubling. I've seen another colleague, Mike Freer from Finchley, had his constituency office burned down just a few months ago, who then decided to step down.
“Nigel Farage, I think has run for parliament now seven, eight times. I've lost track, and has lost on every occasion. He ran in a similar way to this in 2015 didn't and win a single seat when it was UKIP. And I think most pollsters, most commentators, would say that Reform are not going to win a single MP in this election.
“Given that Reform are not going to win any MPs, if people are Conservative minded like I am, then if anyone votes for Reform, they are simply risking letting Labour win more and more MPs, giving Keir Starmer the keys to Number 10 Downing Street.
“And we know that Keir Starmer has absolutely no interest whatsoever in controlling immigration. He's got no interest at all in personal liberty or controlling taxation.
“Firstly, on the [immigration] numbers, many of those, for example, came from Ukraine. That was a couple 100,000. Many from Hong Kong, fleeing the Chinese Communist Party who we welcomed here.
“But we do agree that immigration needs to go down a lot lower. And in fact, even before today's announcement, we took action last year to, for example, significantly raise the salary threshold you've got to earn before you can come here.
“We're saying that if you're coming to study or working on a social care visa, you can't bring spouses or dependents with you. Now those measures will reduce the number of people eligible to come here by 300,000 a year. That is a huge reduction.
“We're seeing that take effect already, because in the first three months of this year, 2024, January, February, March, we saw the number of visa applications down by 25% so we've taken action already, because immigration does need to be a lot lower.
“We're four weeks away from an election. As I say, on the migration numbers, we've taken decisive action already that's going to reduce it by 300,000, that's happening already. On the boats we said today, if we’re re-elected, the first Rwanda flight is now firmly scheduled for the 24th July.
“We know the deterrent effect of sending people somewhere like Rwanda does work. We saw it work in Australia about 10 years with their Operation Sovereign Borders, so there is a clear plan. And I think as this election campaign unfolds, we're right at the beginning of it now. We've got just over four weeks to go, we will see movement.
“I think the debate tonight is going to be important. People will see Keir Starmer has essentially no idea. He's got a blank sheet of paper. He will say whatever he thinks he needs to say to get elected.
“[He’s] claiming to be tough on immigration when, as a left wing lawyer, he was the one that was insinuating that immigration laws were somehow racist. It was the Labor Party who voted 139 times in the last Parliament against our immigration laws.
“Some numbers I can give are the measures we've taken already, the higher salary threshold, banning dependents and spouses for students and for care workers; that's going to reduce the number by 300,000 so that's a firm number to take to the bank.
“In terms of the new announcement, the cap. We're going to consult with the Migration Advisory Committee, because I think higher skilled people, it's reasonable to have them come in so things like doctors, IT professionals, finance professionals, research scientists. Those are the kind of people that I think we should be welcoming.
“We'll consult with the migration council to work out what the right number is. Parliament will vote on it, they'll put a cap on it. That cap will reduce every single year. But we need to go through that exercise to work out what it is. But the number you can take for the bank is the measures we've taken already. We've legislated for that in law already, 300,000 reduction, and that is happening already as we speak.”
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