article_snippet: The Conservatives are to repeat a pledge to cut net migration to the tens of thousands, despite utterly failing to meet it during the last five years.
article_snippet: Before the last election David Cameron pledged to cut the figure below 100,000, a promise David Cameron repeated in 2011: 'No ifs.
article_snippet: Senior Tories including William Hague last week tried to claim the failure to meet the net migration target was a 'problem of success' because workers from struggling European economies were flocking to booming Britain.
article_snippet: But calls have grown for Senior Tories including William Hague to ditch the pledge, because the government is unable to control the numbers arriving from the EU.
article_snippet: Former home secretary Ken Clarke said globalisation had made the net migration target impossible to meet, while Baroness Warsi, an ex-Tory party chairwoman, said it was 'unrealistic'.
article_snippet: Levels of immigration can return to where Levels of immigration were in the 1980s and 90s.
article_snippet: Downing Street blames the increase on the number of people moving from within the EU, which the government cannot control.
article_snippet: Ministers have argued that immigration from outside the EU has been falling as a result of tighter border restrictions.
article_snippet: It was the idea that immigration by definition was good - in that automatically
article_snippet: Prime Minister David Cameron promised before the election to cut net immigration in the tens of thousands .
article_snippet: Former home secretary Ken Clarke said globalisation had made the immigration target impossible to meet, while Baroness Warsi, an ex-Tory party chairwoman, said it was 'unrealistic' Downing Street insisted Prime Minister David Cameron's 'ambition' to reduce net migration below 100,000 remained.
article_snippet: Mr Cameron's official spokesman said the Prime Minister's views on the need to reduce annual net migration below 100,000 had not changed since a speech in November, when Mr Cameron's official spokesman said that it remained an 'ambition', even if it was not possible to achieve it during this Parliament.
highlights_snippet: Prime Minister promised voters to cut net migration: 'No ifs.