UK PM’s immigration target impractical

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s target of reducing net migration to the UK to tens of thousands by the 2015 elections is “impractical,” British Business Secretary Vince Cable says.

The Liberal Democrat secretary said the Conservatives’ target was “not sensible” and that his coalition colleagues should accept that some migration cannot be controlled.

“It involves British people emigrating – you can’t control that. It involves free movement within the European Union – in and out. It involves British people coming back from overseas who are not immigrants but are counted in the numbers,” Cable said in an interview with the state-run BBC.

He said setting an ‘arbitrary’ cap is not helpful and that the Conservatives, particularly the PM, would “almost certainly” not achieve the below-100,000 target.

The senior Lib Dem, who has a history of speaking out against his coalition colleagues on immigration, reiterated that the target is a Conservative policy, and not a coalition one.

Cameron’s pledge to limit net migration to the tens of thousands was dealt with a severe blow after figures by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published in November revealed that UK net migration unexpectedly jumped to 182,000 in the year to June 2013, up from 167,000 in the previous 12 months.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper accused Cameron of “failing badly” on the immigration target and said figures show the gulf between their rhetoric and the reality on the issue.