As promised, some last words on the UK elections. In the weeks leading up to May 5th, I wrote quite a lot about the Conservative Party's decision to put immigration reform at the center of its campaign (see here and here). The Tories' strategy made sound political sense, I argued, and was their best bet for reversing their long slide into irrelevance.

As I point out in my latest piece for VDare, post-election analysis bears out this judgment. While there's nothing spectacular about the Tories' small gains, they're the Party's biggest since 1983. And how much worse the Tories would have done without the immigration issue, the only area in which they consistently out-perform Labour in surveys of public opinion.

If there is a lesson here, it's that the Tories should have pushed harder on immigration in the last days before the election -- and that, whoever the Party's next leader, a winning strategy will champion the British public's still unsatisfied desire for reform.

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More:

The Guardian 09/05: "Tories say backing off immigration cost 10 seats"
The Times 23/04: Matthew Parris editorial
Agence France Presse: "They lost despite their immigration policy, not because of it."
Lynton Crosby: "It suits our political opponents to dress it up in other clothes"