On the eve of the 2016 referendum on EU membership, official figures showed annual net immigration to the UK rose to an unprecedented 336,000 – leading to demands by Brexiteers to “take back control of our borders”.
Next week, analysts expect new estimates from the Office for National Statistics to show net immigration rose to at least twice this level last year — a record high largely driven by government policy choices and little to do with the arrival of clandestine boats. from France.
For some hardline advocates of Britain’s divorce from the European Union, who saw Brexit as a way to drastically reduce immigration, this is a betrayal. The anticipation of the data, due on Thursday, has sparked infighting at the top of the Conservative government, which won the 2019 election under then-leader Boris Johnson on a pledge to cut net immigration.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has sought to distance himself from the pledge and adopt a more pragmatic approach by evading firm commitments in both cases.
Instead, he focused on his government’s controversial measures to tackle the chaos in the asylum system and limit the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats. Last year a record number of 45,000 people crossed this road.
Advocates of lower overall migration, such as campaign group Migration Watch, are not easily persuaded by these tactics.
“The government should not be allowed to use the boats to divert attention away from the disastrous levels of legal immigration for which it is largely responsible,” said Alp Mohamed, a former British diplomat and chair of the group.
The government and analysts expected the net migration figure to skyrocket for 2022, with some predicting the figure to exceed 700,000. But it was caught off guard by its magnitude, mostly due to one-off factors.
Covid played a big role, suppressing the initial impact of the new post-Brexit immigration rules, which came into force in January 2021. These rules took away the free movement of people from the EU, but in order to offset the impact on labor markets, ministers liberalized Visa regime for the rest of the world in favor of skilled workers.
Home Office visa statistics for 2022, already published, show employers are using the visa regime for skilled workers – particularly in the NHS and care sectors, where ministers have cut fees and waived some salary and skills requirements to help stem staffing crises. Visa statistics also point to a post-Covid increase in the number of international students coming to the UK.
Meanwhile, the influx of refugees from Ukraine, and the arrival of people with British (overseas) citizenship from Hong Kong, have greatly increased the numbers.
Taken together, the 2022 statistical findings reveal what Madeline Sumption, director of the Migration Monitor think tank at Oxford, describes as “kixism,” or the desire for two incompatible things at once, both in the general attitudes of the majority toward immigration, and in the way the government responds. In fact, people want a relatively liberal system that does the impossible and provides low numbers of immigrants.
“It’s like public finance: people support the idea of a balanced budget but also like all the different things we’re spending money on,” Sumption said, adding, “People are often keen on lower immigration but also supportive of high immigration schemes.”
Barring more surprises, economists expect immigration to ease from current high levels as arrivals from Ukraine slow, students return home, and the post-Covid employment boom eases.
“The universities are full and the labor market pressure will ease,” said Jonathan Portes, a professor at King’s College London. He argues that job vacancies have fallen across the economy, and hiring could slow even in the health and care sectors once workers, who left in a wave of post-Covid burnout, are replaced.
But, in what is already problematic for Sunak within his fractious party, this would leave net immigration running at levels far above what officials expected when the post-Brexit system was introduced.
Immigration experts also do not believe that the government’s policy towards illegal immigrants will solve the problem of record backlogs in the asylum system and deter secret passage of the channel before the next general elections, which are expected next year.
instead of, Disadvantages of the illegal immigration bill Passing through Parliament, and the absence of working agreements with third countries to enable large-scale deportations, could force the government to detain tens of thousands of people indefinitely, according to both the Oxford Migration Observatory and the Refugee Charity Council.
Meanwhile, business groups say they are still experiencing severe labor shortages in low-wage sectors that can no longer recruit from the EU and are pressing ministers to add more roles to the list of professions in short supply.
Despite the public divisions among ministers that emerged last week, the policy changes under discussion will be relatively minor changes to the overall framework.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt told business leaders at the British Chambers of Commerce’s recent annual conference that the government “on the margins, will always be pragmatic” – suggesting it is open to widening the list of professions in short supply, but not to radically expanding the number of low-skilled. immigration.
For now, the audience appears to be relatively satisfied. Opinion has fallen dramatically since the eve of the EU referendum when 66 per cent of Britons favored strict restrictions – if not an outright ban – on immigration.
Only 31 per cent were in this camp last year, according to a Financial Times analysis of the joint World Values Survey and the European Values Study. For the population at large, immigration has slipped further down the list of priorities with only one in four Britons listing it as one of their priorities, according to one. Ipsos survey last month.
I still expect immigration to become more prominent in public opinion. “It’s surprising how prominent it has not been seen in the political debate,” Sumption said. But she added that this week’s data could start to change that.