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The Prime Minister got it right last week when he said that “We risk becoming an island of strangers”. Even at 430,000 net entrants, immigration will change the nature of our society in coming decades. The net inflow of recent years must be very sharply reduced but, so far, the government is doing nothing effective to achieve this.
Net migration in the United Kingdom since 1970 (1000s)
197019751980198519901995200020052010201520202025−600−400−20002004006008001,0001,200Immigration2004589Immigration2004589
Net migration
Immigration
Emmigration
Source: Office for National StatisticsGet the dataEmbed Download imageCreated with Datawrapper
Immigration statistics by source, 2024
| Nationality | Emigration | Immigration | Net migration |
|---|---|---|---|
| British | 77,000 | 66,000 | −11,000 |
| EU+ | 218,000 | 122,000 | −96,000 |
| Non-EU+ | 222,000 | 766,000 | 544,000 |
Get the dataEmbed Download imageCreated with Datawrapper
This massive increase in immigration brings much greater stress on key infrastructure and public services, especially the NHS, our transport services, and social housing.
Indeed our population growth is now due entirely to migration. If migration was cut to net zero (which is what almost half of the public wants), our struggling services would have a much better prospect of recovery.
However, the immigration bill now going through parliament will have very little useful effect on net migration. Instead the government are returning to talking about “smashing the gangs”. Nobody in the government has any credible ideas as to how to do this, although former border security chief Tony Smith has a few – watch his interview with British Thought Leaders below.
This is a preview of Migration Watch’s free weekly newsletter. Please consider signing up to the newsletter directly, you can do so here and will receive an email copy of the newsletter every week as soon as it is released.
