Prime Minister’s former ‘guru’ Steve Hilton says David Cameron knew his election pledge to cut immigration was impossible YEARS ago
Ex-Downing Street aide alleges they were told 'directly and explicitly' it was impossible while we remained in the EU
DAVID Cameron knew his target to cut immigration to "tens of thousands" was impossible for four years but continued to make the pledge, one of his closest former aides claimed last night.
Steve Hilton - who attended top-level meetings with the Prime Minister - said civil servants directly warned the PM he was on mission impossible because EU rules insist on the free movement of people.
Just weeks ago the PM insisted he stuck by his ''ambition'' of bringing net migration into the UK - which last month hit 333,000.
Mr Hilton added: "You don't need to sit in a 'stock take' meeting at No 10 Downing Street to see the obvious truth: our immigration system is completely broken, and as long as we're in the EU, our elected governments are powerless to fix it.
"In the 2015 Conservative manifesto, the Prime Minister reaffirmed his commitment to the immigration target he had been told was undeliverable.
"When I saw that, I assumed this was either because he was certain he could negotiate a solution within the EU, or was assuming we would leave.
"For the Government to continue to make the promise today, after no negotiated solution was achieved and while campaigning to stay, is, I think, what (Michael) Gove and (Boris) Johnson meant when they described this as corrosive of trust in politics."
The policy guru, who is godfather to one of the PM’s kids, also attacks leading Remain campaigner George Osborne.
He says the Chancellor and the “political elite” are “playing with fire” by demonising the public’s desire for control over our borders and destiny.
Mr Hilton writes: “Our broken immigration system is a social disaster because the decency and tolerance of the British people, virtues that our politicians so love to talk about when it suits them, are mocked when they see their local communities and public services overwhelmed by sudden and unplanned-for arrivals of people in large numbers — the kind of dramatic changes which, needless to say, don’t affect the neighbourhoods inhabited by our insular ruling elite.”
He adds: “There’s a broader argument here, too, because the EU debate isn’t just about immigration, which is why it is so offensive for the Remain campaign to argue, as George Osborne put it, that those like me who want to leave the EU ‘want a meaner, narrower Britain’.
“The fact is that with areas such as the economy, the environment, our legal system — which affect people’s everyday lives in Britain — membership of the EU makes it impossible for the elected government to govern our country in the true sense of the word.
“It seems to me that here in Britain, and especially in this referendum campaign, our insular ruling elite is playing with fire.”
Mr Hilton, who describes himself as an immigrant, finishes by saying: “By dismissing - or worse, demonising - people’s desire for control over the things that matter to them, and their perfectly reasonable expectation that the government they elect should have the power to deliver its promises, the rulers are the ones stoking the anger they decry.
“Undeliverable promises. An ungovernable country. An untrusted political establishment. This is what the EU has helped do to our country.
“We can’t go on like this. It’s time for change. It’s time to leave.”
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