Migration Watch responds to the latest set of ONS migration figures, May 2025
May 23, 2025
The latest ONS figures are a timely reminder of the mountain the government has to climb if it is serious about stopping the UK from, in the Prime Minister’s words, becoming an “island of strangers”. Immigration - legal and illegal - remains alarmingly high and out of control.
Today’s statistics underline the dire situation we are in. Net migration is now not only the driver of our exploding population, but it is also pushing us ever closer to a point when the proportion of native British in the population will fall below 50%.
The Prime Minister’s change of tone when launching the WP was welcome and it was good to hear him, finally, admit that mass migration has not been the unalloyed economic success immigration zealots have, for decades, claimed it to be. More snake oil than wonder drug. As the WP points out, mass low-skill, low-wage immigration has been massively costly, harmful to the economy, and has depressed wages.
The public’s calls for much lower levels of migration have been brushed aside repeatedly and ignored for years. As with his predecessors, Sir Keir Starmer will not be forgiven if he fails to keep his promise to cut immigration drastically, as he promised in last year’s election and again only ten days ago.
The Prime Minister will also have to come up with more convincing policy proposals if immigration is to be reduced to anything like the levels necessary to deal with the issue that now concerns the public more than anything else.
Alp Mehmet, Chairman of Migration Watch, said:
These are horrendously high net migration figures. Meanwhile, the government umms and ahhs about what to do about it. The Prime Minister’s ‘island of strangers’ remark took courage. But does he have the mettle to bring in the policies to reduce net migration by a lot? If he fails and the current scale and pace continue, the time when the majority becomes the minority in their own land will be reached within the lifetime of the great majority of people alive today.
For further comments, please contact admin@migrationwatchuk.org.
Notes to editor
- YouGov’s polling showing that immigration is the most important issue to the public can be found here.
- The latest ONS stats can be found here.
- The ONS’s figures show net migration as:
- In 2024, YE June figures were revised up to 739,000 from 728,000
- In 2024, 431,000 - a decrease from the 2023 YE December figures 860,000