Britain’s migration crisis

Is immigration at a record high?

No, net inward migration is currently falling sharply, following a massive post-Brexit surge (the “Boriswave”). That wave peaked in 2023 and since then numbers have been dropping rapidly.

In 2024, total “net migration” (that is, inward minus outward) was 421,000 – half the level of the previous year. Indeed, the fall from 866,000 in 2023 was the biggest one-year drop on record, driven partly by a sharp decline in non-EU immigration for work and study visas following tougher restrictions introduced by the Conservative government in early 2024.

Most importantly, these included a ban on overseas students and care workers bringing dependants with them to the UK.

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So why is immigration dominating the news?

Because that huge wave of immigrants following January 2021, when the post-Brexit regime was introduced, has been gigantic by all previous standards.

By late 2023, immigration was running at roughly 1.3 million people a year. Subtract those emigrating in that period (roughly 400,000) and that was record net inward migration of nearly 906,000 people (in the year to summer 2023).

Despite the big drop since then, the current level is still higher than that seen for most of the 2010s and far higher than in the 2000s. In addition, successive governments have been largely unsuccessful at cutting illegal entry into the country.

Indeed, the number of people crossing the Channel increased in the first year of the “smash the gangs” Labour government. There were around 42,000 arrivals in the year ending 30 June 2025, 34% more than the year before, and close to the record levels reached in 2022.

And the public is worried?

Illegal immigration makes up a small fraction of the total (small-boat crossings accounted for about 4% of all immigration last year), but it contributes disproportionately to public unease about the scale of migration as a whole.

The massive surge in small-boat crossings from under 2,000 people a year in 2019 to 46,000 in 2022 (a peak that may well be exceeded this year) coincided with the giant wave of legal immigration under the Tories’ post-Brexit policy of excluding EU citizens but welcoming in skilled workers from the rest of the world on a points-based visa system.

Since 2020 Britain’s non-EU foreign workforce has grown to 3.2 million – more than double its pre-pandemic size.

Whatever the economic benefits, that rise means that public concern over immigration is at its highest since polling company Ipsos started asking the question in 1974 (with the exception of a short period during the 2015 European migrant crisis).

Last month, almost half of Britons listed immigration as one of the top issues facing the UK.

Immigration statistics: is Britain a global outlier?

Not for asylum claims, but very much so when it comes to overall immigration.

When it comes to asylum seekers, numbers have soared around the developed world.

The UK is a long way down the European league table in this regard, behind Germany, Spain, Italy and France.

In terms of the overall number of asylum seekers in the country – about 1 in 800 of the population – we are just below the OECD average, although the likelihood of being granted asylum in the UK, once you’ve arrived, is higher than in most peer nations.

Conventional legal migration has boomed, too. In 2023 about 6.5 million moved to the 38 countries that make up the OECD rich-nation club through permanent migration routes. Of those 38 nations, the UK was second only to the US in terms of total immigrants.

How many are students?

On that measure, we topped the chart: the UK had more people arriving as students than any other country in the world, followed by the US, Canada and Australia.

In other words, we are global outliers only as a result of the policy decision taken post-Brexit to adopt a relatively low bar in terms of attracting skilled workers from outside Europe, open the doors wide to health and care sector workers, and to woo foreign students.

In the year to June 2025, almost half of all immigrants (47%) were people on student visas or their dependants.

Each year, students have been staying longer, leading to widespread concern that the system is being abused.

The second largest group is people on working visas, who make up 20%, with their dependants making up 11%.

But that’s now being reversed?

Net migration began falling sharply under the Tories and has continued under Labour. Tighter rules should stem the flow even more. There will be stricter restrictions on skilled workers, limiting migrants to graduate-level jobs, thus returning to the original threshold that was replaced by Boris Johnson when he introduced a points-based system.

Employers who want to recruit foreign workers in sectors facing labour shortages will have to show they are increasing the recruitment and skills training of the domestic workforce.

The Home Office estimates all this (and other measures) will result in around 100,000 fewer visas being granted each year.

What else should change?

There’s a growing recognition – among social democrats as well as right-wing populists – that the current asylum system isn’t working, says The Economist.

Designed to protect refugees in post-war Europe, “it cannot cope with a world of proliferating conflict, cheap travel and huge wage disparities”.

The solution is for rich countries to work together to agree a new framework that encourages refugees to remain as close as possible to their home countries.

As for Britain’s post-Brexit experiment in liberal immigration policy, an honest reckoning would admit “that it has been an economic success but a political failure”.

That’s the trade-off Keir Starmer is now grappling with. He could yet well succeed in pushing immigration down. “If Britons feel a little more pinched and poorer as a result, they might not thank him.”

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