Jacob Rees-Mogg Admits 1 Key Post-Brexit Policy Failed: 'Let Me Apologise'

Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted on BBC Question Time last night that the Tories’ post-Brexit migration policy went wrong.

The former Brexit opportunities minister was responding to Keir Starmer’s claim that the Tories ran an “open border experiment” which sent immigration soaring.

It came after official figures revealed on Thursday that net migration soared above 900,000 in the year to June 2023.

Rees-Mogg, who lost his seat in July’s general election, said the way immigration was handled after the UK left the EU was a “terrible thing”.

Responding to Starmer’s comments, he said: “There was not an open borders experiment [under the Conservatives], but migration policy failed and it failed very badly and it failed to do what the British people had wanted.”

Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce said: “So when Robert Jenrick, who is now shadow justice secretary and former immigration minister, said, ‘today is a day of shame for the Conservative Party, the public are right to be furious’. Do you agree?”

Rees-Mogg said he did, adding: “As a Conservative let me apologise for that. We failed and we were culpable for that.”

He continued: “It was a post-Brexit system, we had control! The terrible thing is we had control, we do now have control of our numbers, and we let far too many people in.”

Rees-Mogg said this migration policy was partly down to the government’s response to Covid and because the Office for Budget Responsibility thought immigration would boost economic growth – and partly the way the post-Brexit system was managed.

But, he was not happy when Bruce tried to blame Brexit itself.

She said: “So what do you think, as someone who was a strong proponent of Brexit, that the figures for net migration were lower pre-Brexit than post-Brexit?”

“Well hold on, they were completely wrong pre-Brexit,” he replied.

“Are you disputing that they were lower?” Bruce said.

He said: “The pre-Brexit figures, it was thought around two million would register as a right to stay here post Brexit. The figure was over five million when it was finally created. For years, the ONS was giving us wrong figures on the people coming from the European Union.”

Rees-Mogg said Rishi Sunak began to tighten up those migration numbers towards the end of his tenure, but “nowhere near enough”.