Executive Summary
The 2016 referendum was, in large part, a mandate on immigration. “Take Back Control” was understood by voters to mean control over the numbers: how many people come, who they are, and on what terms. This report assesses whether that demand has been met.
It has not. After ten years, five Prime Ministers and cumulative net migration exceeding 3.7 million, the post-Brexit system has delivered formal sovereignty without the numerical reduction the Leave vote implied. Free movement ended on 31 December 2020, yet net migration reached a record 745,000 in 2022 — nearly eight times the “tens of thousands” promised at successive elections.
The report traces immigration policy across the May, Johnson, Sunak and Starmer governments. It shows that the 2021 points-based system was designed without a cap, without a resident labour market test and with a lowered skill threshold, and that the one binding limit that had existed — the 20,700 cap on skilled-worker certificates — was deliberately abolished. Control over numbers was delegated to employers and universities.
Migration Watch concludes that the missing ingredient is a binding numerical cap on total migration: set by the British government, answerable to the British public, and adjustable at each election. Only this can honour the democratic principle of sovereignty that defined the Leave vote.
Read the full report: ‘Taking Back Control?’ Brexit and Migration Ten Years On
