A leading Conservative Brexiteer who was accused of advocating an immigration policy “completely at odds with what the public think they’ve just voted for” is facing a backlash after his appearance on TV yesterday.
Daniel Hannan MEP was confronted by Evan Davis during his appearance on Newsnight on Friday evening.
Hannan defended claims that the official ‘Vote Leave’ campaign had not been straight with voters when it told them it wanted to “take control of our borders”, despite wanting to make no restrictions to freedom of labour.
He had spoken out, saying:
But the comments were not enough to placate his critics, including Labour MP Jamie Reed. Reed accused Hannan of having "misled" those who voted for Brexit believing it would see a substantial reduction in the numbers of those entering the country.
The Derbyshire local branch of Vote Leave's campaign turned on Hannan, posting in a message to tell him people had "just voted to stop mass immigration" and that politicians now needed to "deliver [that] for us".
Despite having repeatedly chastised David Cameron for his failure to lower immigration levels and meet the target of less than 100,000 net migration each year, Vote Leave supporters have said they want to remain part of the 'common market'.
Doing so would require Britain having to allow in unlimited numbers of European workers.
Many voters responded to Hannan, claiming that people's expectations had been raised about the prospect of lowering immigration and that they had been "misled".
ITV's Europe Editor James Mates also weighed into the debate to explain to Hannan that many Brexiters felt hard done by because "yr [sic] Leave campaign clearly said it did [want to cut immigration sharply]".
"Was there a false prospectus being offered?" he asked.
And the New Statesman's John Elledge wondered why Hannan was failing to understand the motivation that was angering so many 'Leave' voters.
On the back of Nigel Farage's admission that the £350m a week - a disputed figure - that Britain would save from not sending to the EU would not be able to be spend on the NHS instead, some voters regretted backing Brexit.
Hannan was defended by Telegraph columnists Tim Stanley and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.