Immigration to Britain on the rise
NUMBER OF PEOPLE MOVING TO UK SURGES IN PRE-ELECTION BLOW TO CAMERON
The number of people moving to Britain surged last year, an embarrassment for Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Conservatives had pledged to cut net annual migration to the tens of thousands, close to a national election.
Official data published yesterday showed a net 298,000 people moved to Britain in the year to September 2014, a 40 per cent rise from the previous 12 months and more than when the Conservative-led coalition government took power in 2010.
With polls showing the Conservatives neck-andneck with the opposition Labour Party ahead of the May 7 vote and immigration one of voters’ top concerns, the rise is awkward for Cameron.
His party is also under pressure from the UK Independence Party (Ukip), which favours strong curbs on immigration.
Both Labour and Ukip said Cameron’s immigration pledge was now “in tatters.” “This government’s policy is fatally holed beneath the water line and is sinking fast,” said Ukip migration spokesman Steven Woolfe, describing the numbers as “absolutely staggering.”
A ComRes poll for ITV yesterday showed Ukip was by far the most trusted party to control immigration, and 40 per cent of Britons said immigration had a negative impact on the economy.
A spokeswoman for Cameron said the figures were “disappointing” but the government had taken several steps to tackle the levels of migration and the prime minister did not regret making the promise.
“He thinks it is in the interests of our country, that we will have a better, stronger country if we had lower net migration,” she said.
Cameron, who has pledged to renegotiate Britain’s ties with the EU ahead of a 2017 membership referendum if re-elected, has set out plans to restrict EU migrants’ access to welfare benefit payments in a bid to make it less attractive to come to Britain.
Releasing its final migration data before the election, Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the number of EU citizens coming to Britain increased by 43,000 to 251,000 during the period.