The large number of migration generates an even greater debate

A large and austere number. And an ocean of nuances.

Net migration added 606,000 to the UK’s population last year, according to the Office for National Statistics.

An estimated 1.2 million people arrived, while just over half a million left.

But migration is much more than numbers.

It is about emotions, communities and public services. It is about promises, people and places.

Who and how many should the country welcome, from where and for how long?

I’ve been talking to people from Great Yarmouth in Norfolk about it.

The promises of three successive Conservative Prime Ministers were washed away by reality.

“Net migration will be in the tens of thousands each year, with no ifs and buts,” said David Cameron.

There were a lot of “ifs” and even more “buts” – it never came close.

“We think the sustainable numbers are in the tens of thousands,” Theresa May repeated. She never made it either.

Boris Johnson learned his lesson from too specific a promise and instead said “the numbers will go down, because we will be able to control the system” as a result of Brexit.

He was right about the latter, but except for the exceptional period of the pandemic, the numbers have done the opposite: they have skyrocketed.

At the Kings Arms in Caister-on-Sea, I speak to members of the local social club, who are having a lunchtime drink.

“I had a grandmother who came from Estonia when the Russians invaded, so I’m a product of that. I think it’s important to take in people in need. But I think we’ve reached the point where we need to relax.” a bit,” says Susie, sitting on a stool at the bar.

“That equity seems to have been lost. There seems to be an influx of people who want to come here to literally suck us in and not contribute,” adds her husband Owen.

“I think we need some inflow to help us work in this country. So I don’t think you’ll ever get it down to zero,” says Mike.

The view at the Kings Arms is clear: providing a sanctuary for the hopeless is admirable.

But when politicians talk about their post-Brexit ability to control immigration, people here just don’t think that’s really what they’re managing to do.

And the nature of immigration is also changing.

“Since Brexit, free movement has been disrupted, so we are seeing fewer EU citizens moving to the city than before Brexit,” says Fiona Costello of the EU Migrant Workers Project at the University of Cambridge. .

“But what we are seeing are some temporary visa schemes in place. Different nationalities can now move to the city, because these visa routes are open to EU and non-EU communities,” he adds.

Perhaps a mile or so up the hill, Sandhya and Harjeet help Robert exercise. They came from India two years ago and now work at Gresham Care Home.

Robert is paralyzed and requires a lot of support.

Standing proudly in the hallway is the owner and manager here, Vidia Ruhomutally.

He came to the UK from Mauritius decades ago, with as much nostalgia as an ambition to build a better life.

Years later, he runs a house that houses about 40 residents. She is also a significant employer, as she employs more than 70 people, the vast majority of whom she hires from abroad.

The process is arduous: online interviews; buying local properties to house your staff; help them adjust to life in the UK.

You have found that there are not enough local people willing to do the job.

“Without India, we wouldn’t be here. And without us, the hospital would have bed lockdowns,” he says.

“They couldn’t deliver patients to me. We couldn’t provide a service to our community if we didn’t have the beds.”

For years, our leaders in Westminster offered promises on immigration without the full set of tools to deliver them.

This is no longer the case: after Brexit, all the levers of control are in your hands.

But pushing them this way or that comes with trade-offs: social, economic, political.

Rishi Sunak has rewritten the 2019 Tory pledge to reduce net migration, which then stood at around a quarter of a million a year.

He has done it because he will not keep that promise.

Instead, he suggests, your goal is the number you inherited, around half a million.

Close observers of numbers tell me this should be doable.

Come the general election, he, Keir Starmer and the other Westminster leaders will have to set their own vision and priorities.

Migration: It’s about promises, people and places, and our ongoing contentious conversation about what to do about it.