Has Ukip just abandoned its immigration cap? Nigel Farage rejects “abitrary targets”
Ukip leader Nigel Farage has said his party will reject "arbitrary targets" on immigration if it holds the balance of power ahead of a major speech on Wednesday.
Farage reiterated Ukip's pledge to end what the party call Britain's "open borders" approach to immigration. In an article for the Daily Telegraph, Farage said Ukip will not seek to "set arbitrary targets which only result in broken promises".
This will leave the public questioning whether Ukip's promise to limit immigration for employment of those who have a right of permanent residence to 50,000 a year gross under an Australian-style points based system is still party policy.
The cap is intended to last for a total of five years. Ukip's migration spokesman Steven Woolfe, layed out the policy at the party's conference last year. Farage said Ukip wants to establish a Migration Control Commission, which would be responsible for reducing levels of immigration.
In his Telegraph article, Farage argued immigration was far too high and that it was impacted public services. The intervention comes after new figures from the Office for National Statistics showed immigration was up by 42 per cent from the previous year to 298,000.
Despite their failure to do so during the course of this Parliament, Home Secretary Theresa May has indicated the Tories will keep their target to get immigration below 100,000 per year in the next manifesto.
The video below shows Ukip's Steven Woolfe explaining Ukip's immigration policy (5:58 minutes in).