Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to reduce net migration after the latest data showed the number of people arriving in the UKremained historically high despite restrictions introduced by the last Conservative government.
The British prime minister said the blame lay with the Conservatives, whose 14 years in power ended with a landslide victory for Starmer’s Labor Party. in the July general elections. Noting that the annual net migration count has quadrupled since the previous election in 2019, Starmer said the Conservatives had governed the country as an “experiment” in open borders.
“I want immigration to come down significantly,” Starmer told a Downing Street news conference.“If the previous government failed them, this one won’t,” he said, promising to “imminently” publish a white paper outlining the government’s plans to reduce the numbers.
Starmer’s impromptu press conference, during which he announced a border agreement with Iraq to help crack down on human trafficking gangs, underlines the importance of immigration in the national dialogue.
The issue was a major factor in Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union, and successive Conservative administrations since have overseen a huge rise in numbers rather than the promised decline, which contributed to their defeat by the Labor Party earlier this year.
Data released on Thursday revised sharply upwards net migration for the 12 months to June 2023 to a record 906,000, and estimated another 728,000 for the year to June 2024,still well above the 184,000 recorded in the year to December 2019, when the previous general elections were held.
The review for the year to June 2023 shows how much migration to the UK has soared in the years following Brexit and the pandemic. Previously, the ONS thought a net 740,000 people arrived during that period, and that the historical maximum of net migration was 764,000 in calendar year 2022.
Kemi Badenoch, who was elected opposition leader this month following the resignation of former prime minister Rishi Sunaksaid Wednesday that his conservative party had failed on immigration during his 14 years in power.
“During the last Conservative administration we promised to reduce the numbers,” he said. “We did not keep that promise.” In its final months in power, the Conservative government imposed bans on most migrant students and carers bringing dependent people with them to the UK.
Badenoch said his party would review the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, and would set a limit on net migration if the Conservatives won the next election.
