Conservative Party leader Michael Howard kicked off official campaigning in the run-up to Britain's May 5th general elections today with a speech to Party activists in Telford, Shropshire.

The speech left little doubt as to the Tories' plan of attack:

"I'm not going to let the Government sweep this under the carpet anymore. Britain has reached a turning point. We need to control and limit immigration [...] people have a very clear choice at this election. Vote Conservative to limit and control immigration, or vote Mr Blair or the Liberal Democrats for no limits to immigration and an increase in the population by five million over the next three decades."

In addition to citing projections of immigrant-driven population growth, continued abuses of Britain's asylum system, and a breakdown of assimilation mechanisms, Howard underlined the threat posed by out-of-control immigration to the nation's security.

"We face a real terrorist threat in Britain today - a threat to our way of life, to our liberties. Yet we have absolutely no idea who is coming into or leaving our country. And why? Because the government, in its wisdom, abolished embarkation controls for non-EU countries and many of Britain's ports don't have 24-hour security. In an age of global terrorism we have no control over our borders.

What a farce."

By attempting to turn the election into a referendum on Tony Blair's execrable record on immigration and asylum, Michael Howard is showing sound political sense. As I previously noted (here and here), immigration and asylum are the only areas in which the Conservatives consistently outperform their rivals in surveys of public opinion. Since seizing upon the issue in January, the Party has seen its prospects dramatically improve.

But will the Tories be able to ride the issue to victory on May 5th? That depends on what you mean by 'victory'. Almost no one expects Michael Howard to be the next Prime Minister: a number of factors work against a Tory majority, not least its weak starting position in Parliament. But another sort of victory may be on hand: should the Tories win enough new seats on May 5th to cripple the incoming Labour government, they may just have ended Tony Blair's political career.

Americans, many of whom feel gratitude to Blair for Britain's help in Iraq, are unlikely to see the advantage of this. In fact, Howard's position on the War is not much different from Blair's. The same can't be said of immigration. Since Labour came to power in 1997, things have gone from bad to worse. This is particularly striking in the case of asylum, which has skyrocketed since Blair became Prime Minister.

Labour supporters are understandably worried. Even as Howard delivered his speech at Telford, Labour dragged out one of Howard's former ministerial colleagues, Charles Wardle, to warn that the Tory plan (see here) was "uncosted, unworkable and likely to make immigration and asylum problems worse not better". As in previous Labour attempts at damage control, Wardle neglected to offer reasons for thinking so.

It's going to take more than that. The latest polls, released over the weekend, give Labour only the slightest lead. With 69 per cent of the public stating that it would support either tougher controls on immigration or a complete halt to it, almost a third stating that immigrants drive up crime rates, and respondents voicing deep resentment over immigrant consumption of public resources and a taboo on expressions of patriotism, the Tories are poised to leap ahead.

May 5th will be a test case for immigration reformers everywhere. A strong showing by the Tories will be a victory for all of us.