A Tory minister has been roasted on live radio over the party’s failure to hit its immigration target.
Work and pensions secretary Mel Stride was told that if the government was a football team they would have been relegated.
It came after fresh figures yesterday revealed that net migration - the difference between those entering and leaving the country - was 672,000 in the year to June.
At the last election, the Tory manifesto pledged to bring the number down below 229,000.
MPs on the right of the party warned that the Tories may cease to exist if they fail to keep that promise.
On LBC this morning, presenter Nick Ferrari told Stride: “My listeners were promised in 2010, 2017, 2017 and 2019, and in January 2023, this would be addressed.
″Time after time after time, you have failed. You’d be relegated if you were a football team. Why should my listeners believe a word you’re saying?”
The minister replied: “We are seeing, according to the [Office for Budget Responsibility] a downward tilt in these numbers. We have done a number of things to make sure that that happens and continues, but we recognise that these figures are too high.”