Labour caused net migration to the UK to quadruple during their years in power, boosting the United Kingdom’s population by a remarkable 3.6 million people, claims a new report which has hinted the policy was part sheer incompetence and part conspiracy to derive electoral advantage.

The population growth derived from immigration was so significant, it was the equivalent of England spontaneously spawning five new cities with the combined size of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Sheffield, and Bradford, reports The Times. The report by think tank Migration Watch challenges the conventional received wisdom that the migration leap in 1998 was down to factors out of the Labour-controlled government’s power, and says there was a secret conspiracy to erode migration controls.

Criticising the Labour party for pushing ahead with these nation-changing policies to engineer a multicultural Britain, Migration Watch remarks that no Labour manifesto ever mentioned the moves, therefore denying the voting public a chance to vote on the future of their country. As for the reasons for the move, the report discounts the official explanation of benefits to economic performance and GDP, saying: “no study has found any significant benefits to GDP”.

The report instead pointed to the significant benefit to the “powerful business lobby” of a ready supply of cheap labour, and the political motive, remarking: “It is the case that migrants from Asia and Africa are significantly more inclined to vote Labour than to vote Conservative or Liberal Democrat… At the same time there was an internationalist culture in parts of the Civil Service and the media that saw its duty as being as much towards the poor of the world as to the citizens of the UK”.

The report is extremely damning for Labour, noting their disdain for voters that held any negative thoughts about migration lasted right up to the last general election, and beyond. Lord Green, the chairman of Migration Watch said of Labour: “There is nothing to suggest that Labour now have the political will to get the scale of immigration down to a sensible level — rather the reverse.”

It isn’t all bad news for the Labour party though, as the situation has barely improved under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. While net migration ran at 277,000 under Labour, it has only dropped to 185,000 today. The report calls this figure “damaging” to the Conservatives, as on migration they have “over promised and/or underperformed”.

The Labour party is now torn between two directions, claims the report, as public awareness of the challenges posed by mass migration increases. The report concludes: “It seems that the Labour Party continues to be torn between what it needs to do in order to get elected – the party is aware of public concern on the matter – and the instincts of the party, charities and think tanks which ignore the genuine concerns of ordinary people (and traditional Labour party voters) in favour of a self-styled ‘progressive’ approach to immigration”.