Boris Johnson tells Rishi Sunak: ‘We’re no longer EU slaves, curb migration now’

The former PM said the amount of earnings needed to qualify for a UK work visa should be raised.

Warning of the consequences of too many flooding into Britain he pointed to events in Dublin.

In a newspaper column he also hightlighted the electoral success of veteran anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.

Mr Johnson wrote: “People will not accept demographic change at this kind of pace – even in the most achingly liberal of countries and capital cities.”

“Look at what is happening in Dublin, [which] seems to have been engulfed by race riots.”

Mr Johnson continued: “The people of Ireland and Holland, in my experience, are among the nicest, kindest, most generous in the world.

“Yet there are plainly large numbers in both countries who are starting to worry that…a border-free Europe has too many downsides.”

“The whole point of Brexit is that we are no longer in the same legal subservience as Ireland and Holland. We have the powers to change our immigration rules. We can do it now.”

Mr Sunak admits net migration, which peaked at 745,000 last year, is “too high” and Immigration minister Robert Jenrick has drawn up a five-point plan to tackle the influx.

The PM pointed out that migration is now “slowing” but said he recognised “we’ve got more to go” to bring down the number of entrants.

Mr Sunak said the Government has taken action this year by “clamping down on the number of dependants” that international students could bring with them.

He added:“That action I took represents the single toughest measure that anyone has taken to bring down the levels of legal migration in a very long time.”

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Mr Jenrick told a meeting of the New Conservatives, a group of Red Wall MPs, that work is under way to reduce the numbers.

He is pushing for a ban on foreign social care workers from bringing in any dependents and a cap on the total number of NHS and social care visas.

The plan would also see the shortage occupation list scrapped, a programme that allows foreign workers to be paid 20% below where there is a shortage of skilled workers.

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said the current numbers were “unacceptable”.

He promised “to make sure we bring these down.”

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