Shroud-waving Remainers wrong – again!

THE Home Office told us to expect roughly 3.5 million EU nationals based in the UK to win the right to ‘settled status’ post-Brexit, allowing them to live and work here indefinitely. In the event, it was 5.2 million (and rising — because some applications are still being processed). So the government was a mere 1.7 million-plus — or 50 per cent — out.

Risibly inaccurate as that forecast was, as an underestimation it comes nowhere near the Blair government’s official forecast of only an extra 13,000 migrants a year, made when eight Eastern European countries joined the EU in 2004.

For an idea of just how far out that was, more than 2.2 million Romanians and Poles now enjoy settled status in the UK. Two things follow from these absurdities. First, official statistics on immigration are about as believable as Boris Johnson’s excuses for parties at Downing Street during the pandemic. In particular, it’s clear the government had no idea how many EU nationals were living in Britain.

Second, the fact that at least 5.2 million of them sought settled status is a huge vote of confidence in this country. I’m sure a large majority regretted the outcome of the Brexit referendum, in which they could not vote.

Yet they opted to stay in the UK. It means they had a lot more faith in Britain than the shroud-waving, diehard British Remainers.

That faith has been vindicated. Yes, Brexit has its problems, but despite the pandemic and the end of furlough, unemployment is back down to 4.2 per cent (versus a Eurozone average of 7.2 per cent), there are 1.2 million job vacancies and in November the economy exceeded the size it was before Covid struck (on a par with France).

Most forecasters expect the UK to be among the fastest-growing of the rich economies this year, as we were in 2021.

Yes, EU nationals made the right decision to stay. And I, for one, am delighted they did.