On Thursday, official statistics showed that legal immigration to the UK in 2022 rose to nearly three quarters of a million people, The New York Times reports.
It was a new and unwelcome record for the country’s ruling Conservative Party after it pledged to use its powers after Brexit to limit the number of arrivals.
The latest migration figures were a new setback for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. It has sparked anger within the party as he also tries to stop asylum seekers arriving on small boats to British shores, boost the economy and cope with disappointing poll numbers.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics, the country’s official statistics agency, have revised net migration figures for the year ending December 2022, previously estimated at 606,000, a record, upwards to 745,000.
The statistics include people granted permission to enter the country mainly from outside Europe, and mostly for work or study, a trend that is politically inconvenient for Brexit supporters – including Mr Sunak – as the policy ended the automatic right of EU citizens to live in the UK.
During the Brexit referendum in 2016, exit supporters promised to “take back control” of the country’s borders; Britain’s exit from the European Union expanded the government’s ability to determine immigration levels. However, after Brexit, the number of people entering the country legally has conversely doubled, even though Britons have lost their automatic right to live and work elsewhere in Europe.
British employers began looking to fill labour market gaps in other countries, including Asia, Africa and the Middle East, no longer able to recruit freely from their immediate neighbours, and the number of international students from countries outside Europe increased significantly.
As the coronavirus pandemic waned, labour shortages emerged in areas such as health care and hospitality. Net migration figures were further boosted by the admission of people through humanitarian routes, including refugees from Hong Kong and Ukraine.
Experts suggest that some of the rise in the number of migrants is temporary, and that the number will fall in a few years, but the rise has caused tension within the Conservative Party, which has been in power for 13 years and earlier this period promised to limit net migration to less than 100,000 people a year.
Preliminary figures for the year ending June 2023 show a slight decline from the recent peak, with around 968,000 non-Europeans arriving, 129,000 from the 27 countries of the European Union and around 84,000 Britons returning.
More than half a million people left the country during the same period, bringing net migration to 672,000, although this figure is also provisional.
Earlier this year, Mr Sunak said the figures were “too high” and that he wanted to take steps to reduce them. But as labour shortages hamper economic growth, he also faces pressure from employers, including in the health and hospitality sectors, to issue visas to hire foreign workers.
To try to reduce these numbers, the government announced earlier this year that it would not allow most international students to bring family members into the country. Under the new measures, only postgraduate research students will be eligible for dependant visas, cancelling a system that allowed other students, such as those studying for a master’s degree, to bring them into the country.
The British government says the effects of these changes have not yet been felt. However, the migration problem has become increasingly acute in recent months, including because of failed attempts by the government to stop the arrival of asylum seekers trying to reach Britain’s southern coast in small boats.
Last week, the UK Supreme Court rejected government plans to stop such attempts by deporting some of those so arriving in Rwanda. Mr Sunak has since promised a new agreement with Rwanda to try to address the court’s concerns and new emergency legislation to implement the plan.
