“But we have already signalled our intention of leaving the EU, so the 5 year target is meaningless anyway.”
As far as I can recall, that target had nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. It was announced when the government refused to join in the EU’s ridiculous “migrant sharing” scheme which has been foisted on most of the other EU nations with varying degrees of disaster. In fact it was precisely because of the EU’s mishandling of the migrant crisis that Mr Cameron made his pledge. The migrants were not to be accepted from those roaming across Europe but instead were to be taken directly from migrant camps in Syria, Turkey and Jordan. The plan was intended to alleviate the pressure on mainland Europe and to discourage migrants from entering the EU by one of the dangerous Mediterranean routes. Despite disagreeing with it I have to say it is an eminently more sensible plan than allowing unfettered access to the EU by all and sundry and to worry about “redistributing” them after they have arrived.
There seems to be a widespread misconception that everything that takes place in Europe only happens courtesy of the EU. It doesn’t and individual countries are perfectly capable of making their own decisions, as people in the UK will discover in the coming years.