In 2019, the Conservatives stood on a manifesto that promised, amongst other things, to ditch immigration targets (in favour of a more generous points-based system), to increase foreign recruitment of healthcare workers, and to introduce a new student visa which would attract "more students from all over the world" and encourage them to stay on and apply for work in the UK after graduation.

They won a big majority as a result.

People pay too much attention on what politicians say, and too little on what kind of people those politicians and their allies are.

My impression is that Reform and the Greens are the only mainstream parties with an actual opinion on immigration. The other parties approach immigration from a more technocratic perspective. They form policies based on expected outcomes, regardless of what the people with opinions think about that kind of immigration. (Except to the extent those opinions influence the outcomes.)

As long as people keep voting Tories, Labour, or Lib Dems, they are effectively saying that immigration is not that important issue after all.