While the media is preoccupied with the PM’s boozy social gatherings, Priti Patel let slip an amnesty for illegal immigrants. “Asylum seekers” who have waited more than a year for a decision can now work to help ease the care home recruitment crisis under a rule change. Up to 32,000 asylum seekers who have been waiting more than 12 months are eligible for jobs as care workers after they were added to the Government’s shortage occupation list.

Industry chiefs and government advisers said asylum seekers could play a vital part in plugging gaps in the hard-pressed care sector where there are an estimated 140,000 vacancies, accounting for 10 per cent of the workforce. Care homes are on the brink of collapse, as staff abandon jobs in favour of working in pubs and restaurants, the NHS watchdog has warned.

Though the Covid crisis has exacerbated the care crisis, the crisis has been in the making for some time. The sector was already contingent on illegal immigration as pay rates are pitiful and working conditions are poor with antisocial hours. The sector cuts every corner. Recruitment and retention proves difficult when care organisations are not willing to pay a decent rate or improve conditions. That the government is yet again relying on immigration to plug the gap instead of reforming the sector is a disgrace.

That said, it’s highly unlikely Patel will find any takers among the recent influx, the majority of whom are fighting age men, many of who will lack the necessary English skills. What this tells us though, if it weren’t already obvious, is that Patel has no intention of deporting those with no right to be here. Our supposedly “most right wing home secretary ever” will bow to the business lobby’s demands for cheap exploitable labour every single time – each time waiting until the media is distracted to announce it.

Monitoring comments on our Facebook page, many of you tell us that voting for UKIP only lets Labour in, but what difference does it make when Tory immigration policy is also one of open borders and displacement of British workers?

By caving into the business lobby, Patel has effectively issued an open invite to illegal immigrants, who will not only avoid deportation, but will also be offered work if they can game the system for long enough. The Tories will not deliver on immigration. The dinghies will keep coming and the deportations won’t amount to a planeload for the year.

Across industry we see a number of staffing problems emerge as a result of industries geared to an endless supply of cheap labour from the EU. They’re hooked on cheap labour and they will never reform and restructure if they know that Patel will cave into their demands every time. And she will.

Though the government presently denies visas are on the table as part of a UK-India FTA, there is no basis on which to trust this administration. They already caved into the food industry to avoid embarrassment over Christmas. They’d row back on ending freedom of movement if they thought they could get away with it.

The sad truth is that the Tory party was never going to deliver on Brexit. You can’t expect much from them being that most of the parliamentary party never really wanted it to begin with. They wont get the message until it costs them electorally. That’s where you come in. We need UKIP back in the game. The Tories are not owed anything from leave voters.

There is now a chance the Tories will lose the next election by way of their incompetence, sleaze and and treachery. You’ll get no argument from us that Labour would be a magnitude worse, but that’s just something we’re gong to have to put up with until we build a real right alternative to the Tories. It’s going to get worse before it gets better, and sadly that’s what it will take for people to wake up. UKIP will be there when they do.