UK politics live: Double blow for Tories as former MP defects to Reform and Farage’s party boosts membership

Net migration to the UK has fallen this year, after reaching a record high of more than 900,000 in 2023 - 166,000 more than previously thought.

It fell to 728,000 in the year to June 2024, a decline of 20 per cent. But this came after net migration figures for the year to June 2023 were revised upwards to 906,000 from the initial estimate of 740,000, provisional data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) indicates.

A similar change was made for the year to December 2023, which was initially estimated to be 685,000, and is now thought to be 866,000 – an increase of 181,000.

Millie Cooke reports

Matt Hancock has urged MPs to back Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill, recounting his experience with a constituent suffering from terminal cancer who begged him to change the law.

The former health secretary told The Independent it is time for the law to change, saying it is wrong that some people are “still forced to have very painful deaths”.

“I can remember the moment that I changed my mind and became in favour of assisted dying when I was health secretary”, Mr Hancock said, telling the story of David Minns, one of his Suffolk constituents, who died last year.

Millie Cooke reports

Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf has announced that the party now has more than 100,000 members, up from around 15,000 a year ago.

“Momentum and trajectory are much more important than absolute position,” he told assembled press at a conference in London.

The party is polling around 20 per cent, also up from around 10 per cent this time last year. It means Reform is closing in on the Tory membership figure of 131,680.

Nigel Farage has promised to slash illegal migration by leaving the European Convention on Human Rights if Reform UK wins the next election.

The Reform leader said there is “nothing we can do” to stop illegal immigration inside the convention. “When it comes to legal immigration, it’s perfectly clear that the more low-skilled people we take in, the poorer the rest of the population gets,” Mr Farage said.

He added: “During six of the last eight quarters, GDP per capita has fallen, whilst net migration figures have legally reached the highest number ever.

“The link is clear. We have to drastically reduce the numbers coming into Britain.”

Former Tory MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns has joined Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, and will stand for the party as its candidate for the newly created Lincolnshire mayoralty next year.

“Today I have joined the party of the brave,” she said after being unveiled at a press conference in London.

The move is a blow to Kemi Badenoch, as Ms Jenkyns was an influential figure on the right of the Tory party under Rishi Sunak.

Nigel Farage has promised to use Elon Musk’s work in the Department for Government Efficiency as a blueprint in “cutting the administrative state” if Reform UK comes to power after the next general election.

The Reform UK leader described the Trump ally and billionaire as his “new friend” and said he was excited for Mr Musk to take up the role, designed to slash billions of dollars worth of government spending.

Nigel Farage has responded furiously to the immigration figures, saying that after almost one million migrants entered the UK, net, in a single year, he has “had enough of being lied to”.

He said: “In 2023, under a Conservative government, nearly 1 million net people came into our country. “This after manifestos in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 promising in the first three, they reduced the numbers to tens of thousands a year, and in the last one, a substantial reduction.

“I have had enough of being lied to by the Conservative Party. I don’t believe they’ll be forgiven at any point in the next few years for what they have done.”

Nigel Farage has been introduced at his London press conference as the most patriotic political leader in the UK.

The Reform UK leader is living up to the claim, with Union Jack socks.

Labour said the latest migration figures showed the government had started the “hard graft” of tackling the issue, and accused the Conservatives of being the “open borders party”

A spokesperson for the party said: “In their own words, the Tories broke the immigration system. On their watch, net migration quadrupled in four years to a record high of nearly one million, despite saying they’d lower it to 100,000.

“They are an open borders party who lied time and again to the public. This is the chaos Labour inherited and any crowing from the Tories should be seen in that light.

“Over the summer, the Government started the hard graft. We hired more caseworkers to tackle the asylum backlog and we’re now interviewing 10,000 people per month, compared to 2,000 under the Tories, so we can get people out of asylum hotels and save the taxpayers billions.

“We’ve also ramped up the removal of those with no right to be in the UK by a fifth. Without this action, thousands more would remain in the UK illegally.

“Labour is getting on with cleaning up the Conservatives’ mess. Our new Border Security Command is working with our European partners to smash the criminal gang networks driving small boat crossings.”