Basic migration falls to the tens of thousands

The success that dare not speak is name

The lag in data means we are told, only now, that net migration halved last year to 171,000. Break it down and an even more striking figure emerges. In Q3 last year, basic migration (excluding students, humanitarians) fell to the ‘tens of thousands’ often promised but never delivered by the Tories. It plunged to ~75k in the final three months of last year. Here is the full picture:-

This breakdown, a relatively new feature from the ONS, shows how much of the ‘Boriswave’ was students. It was government policy from 2019 to build up to 600k a year. There was a graduate visa introduced in 2021 that let people stay and work for two to three years after graduating – that made it more attractive to people essentially coming to work leading to a big surge in Indians and Nigerians. And they brought their families, which they could do until restrictions in 2024. At peak, students’ family members are almost a third of the total: 137k out of 486k total.

And it suited universities which got money they needed and kept quiet about low quality students who were really here to work or to claim asylum. When the Tories worked out what was happening, they reversed course - and much of the falls are to do with their policies rushed in towards the end. There is no pre-2019 breakdown of ‘basic migration’ but if there was, it’d likely at its lowest for 20 years.

The main lever that Shabana Mahmood is pulling as Home Secretary is work visas. Applications for health visas, for example, have fallen from 232k a year to ~40k now.

The below shows how immigration collapsed as a concern after Brexit when people wrongly thought that border control tools, once acquired, would be used well. Concern and dismay surged when the Covid dust cleared and it was clear the Tories set the bar too low.

It’s worth looking at the Boriswave in historical perspective. It’s a blunder that flattened a party.

So far above, of course, is legal migration. The small-boats problem continues: driven not by sloppy coastal patrols but by dysfunctional laws that oblige the UK to meet small-boat people as soon as they enter UK waters and escort them to shore and then their hotel. For as long as this is the law, then no amount of coast-guarding will ‘stop the boats’. But we do see them arriving far less frequently.

The influx is ~7,500 so far this year vs ~12,700 this time last year. And meanwhile, serious progress is also being made cutting the asylum backlog bequeathed by the Tories.

Alongside this, Bas Javid’s deportation squad has been upping its game - albeit still far below levels seen under David Cameron’s coalition government. There is a lot of potential to increase, even double, the below.

Reform UK is proposing camps and ICE-style snatch-squads. None of this is necessary: we know where the next 5,000 people to deport are, we just lack the resources to deport. There’s even a special category of welfare for people who cannot work here - being here illegally and not having any asylum case - but whom the UK has not got around to booting out. The most egregious example of this is foreign criminals who are released from jail and milling around, waiting to be sent home.

The above is a different question to net migration - but when Shabana Mahmood sorts it (leave her in the Home Office and I suspect that she will) the question will turn to things like the above. And it’s down to Rachel Reeves: the deportation system works, and without any of the ICE-style agony Trump inflicts in America or Reform threatens for the UK. It needs more cash. More deportations deter arrivals, helping speed the progress on small-boats.

Overall, the above is a story of success and opportunity: ministers delivering what they promised. Effective government. The question now is whether this is a story that Labour cannot bring itself to tell.