MIGRATION SLOWS AFTER EU EXIT VOTE
But breaking from Brussels is only way to fully control our borders
ANNUAL net migration has fallen to the lowest level for three years following Britain’s vote to leave the EU, official figures showed yesterday.
A surge in the number of EU nationals leaving the country helped reduce the total to 246,000 for the year to the end of March, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Campaigners welcomed the fall last night but pointed out that it was not the result of any tightening of border controls. They also noted the figure is still far higher than the Government’s target of fewer than 100,000.
Lord Green of Deddington, chairman of Migration Watch, said: “This is a step forward but it is largely good fortune. It should not obscure the fact
that migration remains at an unacceptable level of a quarter of a million a year with massive implications for the scale and nature of our society.”
An estimated 122,000 EU nationals left the UK during the year to March, the highest outflow for nearly a decade, the data showed.
And 19,000 fewer migrants came to Britain from EU countries during the 12-month period compared with the previous year, although experts said the reduced inflow was “not statistically significant”.
The difference between the numbers of people arriving and leaving the country was 81,000 fewer than in the previous 12 months.
Senior Tories admitted the Government had far more work to do to reduce net migration to “sustainable levels”. Immigration Minister Brandon Lewis said: “The fall in net migration – for the third quarter in succession – is encouraging but we are not complacent.
“There is still more work to do to bring net migration down further to sustainable levels.
“People who come to our country to work bring significant benefits to the UK but there is no consent for uncontrolled immigration.”
Nicola White, of the Office for National Statistics, said: “These results are similar to 2016 estimates and indicate that the EU referendum result may be influencing people’s decision to migrate into and out of the UK. She added: “It is too early to tell if this is an indication of a longterm trend.”
Other experts pointed out the fall in the value of the pound over the past year had reduced the incentive for EU nationals to work in Britain.
Separate population figures released by the Office for National Statistics yesterday showed the number of Polish nationals living in the UK passed the one million mark for the first time last year.
Around one in seven (14 per cent) of UK residents in 2016 was born abroad while nine per cent were not British citizens. Anti-Brexit campaigners claimed the drop in net migration was evidence of a “Brexodus”, an exodus of EU nationals as a result of the Brexit vote.
Labour MP Ian Murray, a supporter of the pro-Brussels pressure group Open Britain, said: “These figures show that we are facing a Brexodus of EU citizens from our country, which will damage our economy, our universities and our public services, and leave Britain a less global, less dynamic country.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the NHS was facing recruitment problems due to the lack of EU workers. He added: “People move for lots of reasons – our public services would not have survived if there hadn’t been a lot of people who had come from all parts of the world and made a massive contribution to all of our living standards.”
Employers’ organisations argued that the fall in net migration could lead to labour shortages. But the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development pointed out that the net migration level from the EU was still far higher than before EU free movement rules were extended to eastern Europe from 2004.
Gerwyn Davies, senior labour market analyst, said: “On the surface, the data suggests that the Brexit vote has had a negative impact on the number of EU citizens that would like to live and work in the UK.
“However, despite a modest fall in recent months, EU net migration levels remain well above post-enlargement average levels.”
Tim Thomas, of the manufacturing organisation EEF, said: “European workers, particularly those from member states that joined the EU more recently, are voting with their feet and leaving the UK to work elsewhere. The referendum effect, the relatively slow progress in the Brexit talks, movements in exchange rates, and the UK’s offer of settlement to EU workers in the UK have all played a part, with manufacturers now struggling like never before to recruit and retain the workers they need.”
SOME good news at last on the numbers of migrants to this country: they are falling. Annual net migration has sunk to a low of 246,000 but even that is a huge figure and an indicator of quite how serious the problem of immigration had become.
Our forthcoming departure from the European Union will help matters, of course, but the Government must remain aware that this is as big a concern as ever and that the British population will not be satisfied until it is brought entirely under control.
Just what a problem it has become is also indicated by a separate figure out yesterday, the news that more than a quarter of births in England and Wales were to women born outside the UK. It scarcely need be said what a strain this is putting on the NHS, social care, education and housing and that is without even considering the pressure put on local communities who never wanted nor asked for this change.
This shameful experiment in trying to change the face of this country on the sly must stop now.
It was Tony Blair and his cohorts who opened the borders and welcomed everyone in. It has been an unmitigated disaster. If Theresa May reverses this trend along with negotiating a successful Brexit, she may yet turn out to be one of the great PMs.