Fixing climate change will help end Britain’s immigration crisis, a Tory MP claimed at the Conservative Party Conference yesterday.
Speaking at an event titled “Can climate action help stop the boats?”, Ben Spencer said that coming up with policies to tackle climate change was important to reducing immigration in the run up to 2040.
Pressed by one Tory member on how discussing climate change alongside migration would help win back Reform voters, the Runnymede and Weybridge MP said that while his messaging may be unpopular, it was an important part of solving the migration crisis.
He said: “The Reform manifesto was very much predicated on stopping migration and stopping net-zero policies.
“So by definition, if that manifesto maps onto Reform voters, this is not the sort of thing that is going to move the dial.
“That being said, if we are going to fix the problem, part of the solution has to be around climate change.
Ben Spencer said tackling climate change would help reduce immigration over the next 15 years
“Part of the problem 10 to 15 years down the line and also in terms of internal migration issues with flooding and climate events which are happening in our own country and the challenges around increasing flood plains which has hit an icige.”
Spencer went on to accuse Reform of only offering slogans on migration and failing to actually put forward detailed policies on how to reduce the number of people coming to the UK.
He said: “I’m not sure this is how we get Reform votes, but in the same way, this is the problem. This is the problem of the last election. This is the problem dare, I say that we that we have had and need to fit in terms of our party and our party electorate.
“Other parties, let’s face it, are much better at a simple sound bite that people can get behind and it seems black and white and very clear.”
Tackling immigration has been one of the central elements of the Tory leadership contest currently taking place, with all four candidates – Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat – vowing to get a grip of the issue.
Yesterday Jenrick said he wants to “get migration done”.
Mirroring the language that Boris Johnson used to describe Brexit, the former immigration minister told reporters that he wanted to “settle” migration so that leaders can address other issues.
He is advocating for a cap on legal migration in the tens of thousands or fewer and for a stronger version of the Rwanda policy.
“If we have that cap, then we can stop talking about migration. I want to get migration done. This is a running sore in British politics.
“It’s important that we settle this by having serious answers to these challenges. Then we can talk about all the other issues that the public wants us to be discussing, like the economy and the NHS.”
Meanwhile, Badenoch has said it is important immigrants share British values.
She said at the weekend: “I am making an observation that we need to make sure we uphold our values in this country and we don’t allow it to turn into the place that millions of people around the world are running from.”