EU migrants have been able to “treat the UK as if it’s part of their own country” for too long, Boris Johnson said yesterday as he reprised the core message of Vote Leave’s 2016 EU referendum campaign.

The prime minister guaranteed that migration would fall under his plan for an Australian-style points-based system after Britain left the European Union. The focus on migration, in stronger language, in the last days of the election campaign is intended to appeal to undecided Eurosceptic voters in Labour marginals.

He told Sophy Ridge on Sunday on Sky News: “I’ve said that what we want to do is bear down on migration, particularly of unskilled workers who have no job to come to and I think that’s what’s happened