Yes, people are fed up. They say ‘Taxes are too high’, ‘My food bill has almost doubled’, ‘Immigration is out of control’ and ‘I can’t get a doctor’s appointment’. And I can’t disagree with them.
Of course, the country has faced huge challenges in the past five years – a global pandemic and war on the Continent, which forced us to borrow billions and sent inflation and energy bills spiralling.
But we’ve allowed ourselves to be distracted from the issues that matter to people.
Over the past 25 years, around six million migrants have been added to the population of the UK. In the previous 25 years, it was 68,000.
You don’t need to be a mathematician to see that isn’t sustainable. We are not a large country.
Robert Jenrick writes that the Conservative family has always been, and must continue to be, a natural home for Reform voters who share our concerns
Robert Jenrick writes that we’ve allowed ourselves to be distracted from the issues that matter to people
That’s why the Tories have cut migration by reducing the number of family members foreign workers can bring here and we’ve introduced a higher salary threshold for overseas workers coming to the UK so more jobs are available for British people.
These changes – forecast to cut net migration by 300,000 – will show in the migration figures from the end of this year.
The Government took its time but we are now turning a corner.
These changes are vital to protect public services. Mass migration means we don’t have enough housing; it pushes up rents and takes homeownership out of reach for young people.
We’d have to build a new home every five minutes, night and day, to keep up with levels of immigration.
There aren’t enough doctors’ surgeries to cope with millions more people. And we won’t be able to build a cohesive, harmonious country with such a rapid pace of societal change.
This common sense is obvious to people across the country but has been ignored by so-called economic experts for too long.
Since January 1, more than 11,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel on small boats
RNLI lifeboats and Border Force Vessels were seen rounding up men, women and children as they arrived into the Port of Dover last week
An overloaded dinghy of migrants crossing the Channel to the UK in April
On illegal migration, our policy of deterrence is the right one, but it needs to be bolstered which is why I resigned on principle from Cabinet.
We need a strengthened Rwanda policy to tackle illegal migration. The National Crime Agency agrees we need a deterrent such as the Rwanda scheme. Whereas a Conservative government can deliver that, Labour and Reform UK want to scrap it.
Labour says it will smash people-smuggling gangs – but law enforcement agencies already employ that policy.
And Reform says it can stop the boats in 100 days with France’s help – but that’s unworkable. The French could stop the boats now and end this farce – but have refused time and again.
Reform is not the answer at this election. Their plans are not based in reality. Cut £50 billion a year from public services? Independent observers have explained that the sums don’t add up.
But their plan doesn’t need to work, because they know they’ll never be in government.
Nigel Farage claimed that the West provoked Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine
Jenrick writes: ‘Boris will always have a special place in our party and country’s history as the leader who got Brexit done’
While I vehemently disagree with Nigel Farage that the West provoked Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, I have a lot of respect for him.
He speaks for the concerns of millions of people, but he isn’t asking to lead the country.
Instead, he wants to be the official Opposition. And yet he knows he can’t do that either as he’ll have only a handful of MPs at best.
The Conservative family has always been, and must continue to be, a natural home for Reform voters who share our concerns.
We have to build a coalition of voters and propose policies which will fix people’s problems – be that on migration, public services reform, the cost of living, or housing.
A vote for Reform or Labour risks a one-party state taking us back 50 years to the dark days when Labour’s union paymasters were in control.
It’s why we need the best talents of the Conservative Party working together, and why I know Boris Johnson has been supporting Tory colleagues ahead of polling day.
He will always have a special place in our party and country’s history as the leader who got Brexit done.
He is also, of course, a one-of-a-kind campaigner, and must always have a place in the Conservative Party, including in Parliament, if he ever wishes to have one.
So let’s come together in the next two weeks and fight for the issues that matter to people.
Because whether it’s Labour, Reform, or the Lib Dems – votes for these pie-in-the-sky parties is a vote for La La Land fantasy politics which will only take the country backwards. And we cannot afford that.
