New Conservatives’ immigration policy raises questions over Sunak’s authority

For Rishi Sunak, these are not normal times. Photograph: Frank Augstein/PA

In normal times, you would not expect a deputy chair of your own party to help produce an independent policy programme for migration that is especially different from the government’s own. But for Rishi Sunak, these are not normal times.

The presence of Lee Anderson among the New Conservatives, a pressure group of predominantly “red wall”-based 2019- and 2017-intake Tory MPs, is just one of the eyebrow-raising elements of their decision to intervene on migration.