MIGRANT numbers are out of control and Labour MUST do more to stop the crisis spiralling, expert Fraser Nelson warned today.
Fresh stats showed net immigration hit a monster 906,000 last year as Britain’s population continued to soar.
On Never Mind The Ballots Mr Nelson warned arrival numbers are “completely unsustainable”.
And he blasted the Home Office for failing to keep track of the full extent of foreigners entering the country.
The border figures for 2022-23 were today drastically revised up from the initial estimate of 740,000 released in May.
Mr Nelson said: “Everyone got this migration forecast completely and utterly wrong.
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“It suggests that no matter what you think the number is going to be – the real number is going to be a lot higher.”
The top journalist argued Labour “will have to do more” to get a grip of the border.
He said: “Things which blindsided the Tories, for example, was not so much the people coming in individually but their dependents.
“That includes their spouses, the families they were bringing in, even by students – it completely threw them.
“So what you need to adjust there is, for example, the earnings threshold for somebody’s spouse.
“The government hasn’t yet accepted recommendations to increase this to the mid 30,000s.
“But I think they’re probably going to have to.”
ANALYSIS, by Fraser Nelson
Boris Johnson’s immigration stance torpedoed his own agenda.
What the ex-PM should have done is taken the Brexit vote and forged it into a political agenda.
That was quite easy to do. You’d have said to employers look, so far you’ve been using fairly cheap migrant labour to fill your workforces. Look at the care homes – you’re paying unskilled wages for a skilled job. This can’t go on.
So from now on we’re going to turn the immigration tap right down. You’re not going to like it, but you’re either going to have to raise wages, automate or train British workers. But you need to use the vast pool of unused labour in the UK economy.
Now that would have been very difficult – it would have put Boris in a tight spot. They would get business saying, well we can’t find care home workers etc.
And what happened was the Tories buckled. Rather than have the nerve to force through a kind of adjustment to a more cohesive economic model, they caved and gave employers all the immigration that they wanted.
I think looking back, it’s quite clear that this was the moment where it could have been and a painful transition, but nonetheless necessary transition, to a higher wage, higher skilled economy.
An economy that forced employers to look at Britain’s own unemployed, not just those claiming unemployment benefits, but those in sickness benefits as well, and seeing what they could do to get people back into work.
If this were 20 years ago, it would be a crisis that we have three million people in sickness benefits. There’s no way we could’ve grown the economy.
But now we’re used to saying well if there’s worker shortages then let’s just increase immigration.
Demographic changes mean there’s a huge pool of immigrants, not just from the EU, from all over the world, still willing to come in.
The result, though, is that this allows employers to basically ignore the British work list.
And worst of all, it allows British politicians to ignore the British work list.
Fraser Nelson will present a new documentary on sickness benefit- and how it’s trapping people it’s supposed to help – on Monday next week at 8pm. You can watch on Channel 4 and Channel 4 on demand after the show airs live.
This year’s net migration stats – from June 2023-24 – stand at 728,000.
In the past year some 1.2million people arrived in the UK – mainly via legal routes but also small boats – and 479,000 left.
It means there has been a 20 per cent reduction in year-on-year net migration, largely driven by measures imposed by the last Tory government.
They include a ban on care workers bringing family to the UK, and also a higher salary threshold for foreign employees.
The ONS said that although remaining high by “historic standards”, net migration is “beginning to fall”.
But today’s stats will spark calls for even tougher border controls after net migration was around a city the size of Nottingham.
Meanwhile government spending on asylum seekers stood at £5.38billion last year, up from £3.95 billion.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has vowed to wrestle down the ballooning migrant hotel bill by increasing returns.
Yet the number of asylum seekers in hotels has increased since the election, standing at 35,651 on September 30 up from 29,585 on June 30.
Legal migration is by far the biggest contributor to total arrivals, with work and study visas the most popular routes.
Indian was the most common nationality to arrive, with 240,000 crossing the border last year.
They are followed by Nigerians (120,000), Pakistani (120,000), Chinese (78,000) and Zimbabwean (36,000).
People coming from the EU is now a tiny percentage of the overall figures after Brexit.
