In the year to June 2023, an estimated 672,000 more people moved to the UK than departed, according to the Office for National Statistics – a tough read for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as he struggles to lower net immigration.
Sunak is the latest in a succession of UK prime ministers to fail to keep their Tory party promise to lower immigration – a key pledge of their Brexit campaign manifesto to leave the European Union.
Adding salt to the wound are amended figures for the year ending December 2022, which revised the net number of migrants arriving in the UK to 745,000 – a new record.
But with a stagnating economy and high inflation, driven partly by a shortfall in workers driving up wages, UK employers are increasingly recruiting staff from abroad in areas where Britain does not have enough home-grown skills.
Since the UK left the EU on Jan 31, 2020, migration from Europe has fallen, however, there has been an increase in migration from non-EU countries, ironically mostly through government-sanctioned schemes.
