‘Net’ migration, eh?
New York Times headline (November 27):
The British Public Thinks Immigration Is Up. It’s Actually Down, Sharply.
Subhead (emphasis added):
Net migration to Britain has fallen by almost 80 percent from its 2023 peak, according to data released on Thursday.
Net migration, eh?
Official data released Thursday showed that net migration to Britain fell sharply in the 12 months leading up to June, to 204,000 people, down from the previous year’s total of 649,000.
Those numbers continue a downward trend in Britain. Net migration — the number of people who arrived, minus the number of people who left — almost halved in 2024, the result of tougher rules announced at the end of the previous Conservative government, and of changes in global migration patterns.
Overall, net migration to Britain has now plunged by almost 80 percent since its peak of nearly a million people in 2023.
Read on to get to the number that really counts:
Around 898,000 people moved to Britain over that year, compared to just under 1.3 million in the previous year, according to the report.
That is a fall of around 30 percent, which is certainly progress, after a couple of years in which gross and net immigration surged, much of it part of the “Boriswave.” But it has yet to return to the levels of the previous decade, let alone the 1990s, when it averaged in the 300,000s, and that was still a historically high number.
Asylum seekers have attracted a lot of press coverage, but, reassures the NYT’s Michael Shear, they “only” account for 11 percent of the incomers.
And:
The number of migrants claiming asylum did rise from 81,000 to 96,000 in the year ending in June 2025, with most claimants coming from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Albania.
Shear quotes Sunder Katwala, the director of British Future, “which specializes in migration and integration.”
“Falling immigration is the biggest secret in British society,” says Katwala.
Hmm . . .