Net migration to the UK has more than doubled from pre-Brexit levels, figures which should be shown

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

On the eve of the 2016 referendum on EU membership, official figures showed annual net migration to the UK had risen to an unprecedented 336,000, fueling calls from Brexit supporters to ‘take back control of our borders’ “.

In the coming week, analysts expect new estimates from the Office for National Statistics to show net migration has risen to at least double that level last year, a record that is largely the result of government policy choices and it has much less to do with the arrivals of clandestine boats from France.

For some hardline supporters of Britain’s divorce from the EU, who saw Brexit as a means to drastically reduce immigration, this represents a betrayal. The anticipation of the data, scheduled for Thursday, has already been made unleashed infighting at the top of the Conservative government, which won the 2019 election under then leader Boris Johnson with a pledge to drastically cut net migration.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has tried to distance himself from that commitment and has taken a more pragmatic approach renege on firm commitments in both cases.

Instead, he focused on the controversial measures his government is putting in place to address the mess in the asylum system and curb the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats. Last year a record 45,000 arrived via that route.

Advocates of far less overall migration, such as the campaign group Migration Watch, are not easily persuaded by these tactics.

“The government must not be allowed to use the boats to divert attention from the catastrophic levels of legal migration for which they are largely responsible,” said Alp Mehmet, a former British diplomat and chairman of the group.

A sharp increase in the 2022 net migration figure has been anticipated by the government and analysts with some forecasting the figure to exceed 700,000. But it surprised in its scope mainly due to one-off factors.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graph. This is most likely due to the fact that you are offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

Covid has played an important role, suppressing the initial impact of new post-Brexit immigration ruleswhich entered into force in January 2021. These abolished the free movement of people from the EU, but, to offset the impact on labor markets, ministers liberalized the visa regime for the rest of the world to favor skilled workers.

Home Office visa statistics for 2022, already released, show that employers are making liberal use of the visa scheme for skilled workers, particularly in the health and healthcare sector, where ministers have cut taxes and waived some salary and skill requirements to help stem staffing crises. Visa statistics also point to a post-Covid increase in the number of international students arriving in the UK.

Meanwhile, the flow of refugees from Ukraine and the arrival of people with British National (Overseas) state from Hong Kong, has increased the numbers significantly.

Taken together, the statistical results for 2022 have highlighted what Madeleine Sumption, think-tank director at the Oxford Migration Observatory, describes as “cakeism”, or wanting two incompatible things at once, both in the attitude of the majority towards of migration, and in how the government responds. Indeed, people want a relatively liberal system that does the impossible and provides a low number of immigrants.

“It’s like with public finances: people support the idea of ​​a balanced budget but they also appreciate all the different things we spend money on,” Sumption said, adding: “People are often excited about less migration, but they also support most of the high migration schemes”.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graph. This is most likely due to the fact that you are offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

Barring further surprises, economists expect immigration to decline from its current highs as arrivals from Ukraine slow, students return home and the post-Covid hiring boom subsides.

“Universities are full and the pressure from the job market is about to lift,” said Jonathan Portes, a professor at King’s College. He says job vacancies have declined across the economy and hiring may also slow in the health and care sectors once workers, who have left in a wave of post-Covid burnout, they will have been replaced.

But, in what is already a problem for Sunak within his squabbling party, that would still leave net migration at much higher levels than officials expected when the post-Brexit regime was introduced.

Nor do migration experts believe the government’s policy towards irregular arrivals will solve record backlogs in the asylum system and discourage illegal crossings of the Channel ahead of the next general election, scheduled for next year.

Instead, holes in the illegal immigration bill going through parliament and the absence of working arrangements with third countries to allow for large-scale deportations could force the government to detain tens of thousands of people indefinitely, according to both the Oxford Migration Observatory and the charity Refugee Council.

Meanwhile, business groups say they still suffer from a severe labor shortage in low-paid sectors they can no longer hire from the EU and are lobbying ministers to add more roles to the shortage list.

Despite the public splits between ministers on display last week, the political changes under discussion they would be relatively minor changes to the overall picture.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt told business leaders at the recent UK Chambers of Commerce annual conference that government would be ‘on the fringes, always pragmatic’ – suggesting he was open to expanding the list of shortages, but not to a radical expansion of low-skilled workers migration.

For now, the public seems relatively compliant. Opinion has noticeably softened since the eve of the EU referendum, when 66% of Britons were in favor of strict limits – if not an outright ban – on immigration.

Just 31% were in that field last year, according to an FT analysis of the joint World Values ​​Survey and European Values ​​study. For the general population, migration has slipped down the priority list with just one in four Britons making it a priority, according to a Ipsos poll last month.

“I continue to expect the importance of migration to rise in public opinion. It’s surprising that it’s not given how important it is in the political debate,” Sumption said. He added, however, that this week’s data could start to change that.