A million here, a million there…soon you’re talking real numbers. And a million people in a single year is pretty well what we got in 2023, when the net migration figure was 903,000 – so the overall figure (not taking account of people leaving) was getting on for a million. The figures for last year were edging towards three quarters of a million … net. That is why Sir Keir Starmer has been on the stump today to announce a crackdown on “every area of the immigration system”, a “clean break” from the “broken measures” of the past.
The proposals are set out in a White Paper. They include a freeze on care home recruitment from abroad, a requirement that migrants’ families must speak English before arriving, an increase the time migrants must spend here before they can obtain UK citizenship to ten years (except for those who contribute to the economy), a reduction in low skills visas by “up to” 50,000 a year, a requirement that graduate visas for overseas students should go to those in graduate level jobs – quite a low bar, these days.
