Ten days ago, Britain’s Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, emphasized the need to regain control over immigration, cautioning that unchecked immigration could lead to the country becoming “an island of strangers” rather than a united nation.
On Thursday, the government reported a significant decrease in net migration, estimating it had fallen by nearly half in 2024 compared to 2023, reaching 431,000. This suggests that the recent surge in immigration may be subsiding.
The disparity between Starmer’s alarming rhetoric and the statistical data highlights how rising populism, particularly influenced by Brexit, has skewed the immigration debate, often disconnecting it from factual realities.
The anticipated decline in net migration is largely attributed to stricter immigration measures implemented by the previous Conservative government, which faced intense pressure to address the immigration surge that followed Brexit.
These same pressures are now affecting Starmer’s Labour government, which recently introduced a series of measures aimed at tightening migration rules and making it more challenging for newcomers to obtain permanent residency.
Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a research institute focused on migration and integration, remarked, “The previous government gave Starmer a present wrapped in a bow,” noting that they had failed to meet their own migration reduction targets but managed to lower numbers just in time for Starmer to take credit.
The Office for National Statistics publishes biannual estimates of arrivals and departures in Britain. The net migration figure has become a contentious political indicator since the Brexit vote nearly nine years ago.
After peaking at 906,000 in the year from June 2022 to June 2023, net migration decreased by 20 percent to an estimated 728,000 for the year ending in June 2024.
The latest estimate released on Thursday covers net migration for the 12 months from January to December 2024, including the first six months of the Labour government. For the calendar year 2023, net migration was estimated at 860,000.
The statistics office indicated that the decline was driven by reductions in arrivals on work and study-related visas, along with an increase in emigration over the past year, particularly among individuals who initially entered the UK on study visas following the easing of pandemic travel restrictions.
The previous government had also tightened regulations regarding students bringing family members to the UK while studying at British universities, resulting in an 86 percent reduction in net arrivals of dependents of foreign students, marking the largest percentage decline among any group.