Cracking down on immigration is no longer an election-winning policy – no matter who wins the Tory leadership race

While Theresa May struggles to rush out some “legacy” policies in her final weeks in office, the contenders to succeed her are already mapping out how they would dismantle some parts of her programme.

The election of a new Conservative leader later this month provides a golden opportunity to reset the dial in one important area: immigration.

Ms May stuck stubbornly to the target to reduce net migration below 100,000 a year set by David Cameron before the 2010 general election. Mr Cameron has a lot to answer for: not only did he and Ms May fail to hit the target, he also failed to win the changes to free movement he promised before renegotiating the UK’s EU membership terms. This contributed to the vote to leave in the 2016 referendum.

Ms May was isolated in her cabinet over the target but continued to see immigration as purely a numbers game, despite evidence of the economic damage, as the The Independent’s Drop the Target campaign showed. The target became a case study in disastrous public policy and decision-making. With net migration running at 258,000 a year, the outgoing prime minister leaves a poor legacy to her successor on this issue.

A well-argued report published today by the British Future think tank rightly calls for a “clean break” with Ms May’s failed approach. It shows that neither Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt is trusted by the public on immigration, reflecting disenchantment with the May government’s handling of the issue.

Polling by ICM found that only 18 per cent of the public – and 25 per cent of 2017 Tory voters – believe Ms May did a good job of managing immigration as prime minister and home secretary. Only 13 per cent of people think the government has managed immigration “competently and fairly”.

As the reaction to the shameful Windrush scandal proved, public opinion is more nuanced than Ms May chose to believe as she clung to her “fortress Britain” strategy. According to British Future, most people are “balancers” who see the benefits as well as the downsides. There is a consensus for both control and for the openness the economy needs.

Immigration has tumbled down the list of the public’s concerns since the 2016 referendum. ICM found that 60 per cent of people – including 72 per cent of 2017 Tory voters and 70 per cent of Leavers – agree that the net migration target should be replaced by with separate goals for different types of immigration, such as skilled and low-skilled workers.

Thankfully, the Tory leadership race has exposed the lack of support for Ms May’s approach. Mr Hunt has promised to drop the discredited target. Mr Johnson, who seems to have forgotten that he played the immigration card during the referendum, talks up his pro-immigration instincts as he tries to convince us he would be a One Nation prime minister. He has even raised the prospect of an amnesty for illegal immigrants who have been in the UK for 15 years, which would be a sensible move. He would probably replace the target with a more flexible, Australian-style points system. Sajid Javid, the home secretary, is likely to lower Ms May’s £30,000 minimum salary threshold for people coming to the UK on work visas.

Such ideas must be turned into hard policy by the next government, which should formally bury Ms May’s target as one of its first acts. It should also discard the remaining elements of the “hostile environment” policy which has brought us Windrush, the nasty party’s “go home” vans and now even worrying new moves to deport rough sleepers.

The new Tory leader must learn from the party’s mistakes on immigration since 2010. He should acknowledge that, to win an election that might come sooner rather than later because of the Brexit crisis, the Tories will need to appeal to liberal, centre-ground voters. He should resist the temptation to try to out-Farage Nigel Farage, and remember that Mr Cameron was trying to do just that when he announced both the migration target and the EU referendum.