The FOUR shock graphs which lay bare the true scale of Britain’s immigration levels as non-EU migration skyrockets

That 906,000 figure is a headline in itself as it is a record after being revised upwards significantly.

It reveals that the Office for National Statistics underestimated net migration in 2023 by 181,000, roughly the population of the city of Oxford.

These statistics relate to when the Tories were in power, prompting Labour to attack their migration record and highlight the mess they have inherited.

The report reveals the fall in net migration is thanks to a large drop in the number of EU nationals coming to Britain.

It also reveals that while the overall net number is down, the number of non-EU nationals coming to Britain remains unprecedently high, far outstripping the number of EU nationals entering Britain.

This has caused total immigration to rise significantly over the last decade, as can be seen in the light green bar.

Immigration to Britain shot up after the pandemic

UK Government

The statistics show that immigration spiked dramatically after the Covid pandemic but tailed off slightly in the last year.

Since Brexit, the number of EU nationals migrating to Britain has decreased as freedom of movement was tightened up.

But the number of non-EU nationals has more than made up for this decline with over one million arriving last year.

Of this figure, the highest prevalence of nationalities was Indian (240,000), Nigerian (120,000), Pakistani (101,000), Chinese (78,000) and Zimbabwean (36,000).

Of these people, 52 were male and 48 were female, while 82 per cent were of working age (between 16 and 64 years),17 per cent were children (under 16 years) and 1 per cent were aged 65 years or over.

The main reasons for migrating were ‘work’ or ‘study’, but there were massive increases in ‘humanitarian’ and ‘asylum’ too.

Reasons for migrating to Britain

Gov.UK

Indeed, asylum claims doubled between 2021 and 2023 from 40,000 to just under 100,000.

Pakistan (9,560), Afghanistan (8,453) and Iran (7,895) were the most common nationalities claiming asylum in the year ending September 2024, together representing over a quarter (26 per cent) of people claiming asylum.

Another interesting graph that emerged from the ONS report regarded immigration estimates, namely how much they have been underestimated by.

The red circles on the graph below shows the difference between the estimate for the year and the actual data.

It reveals that in year ending June 2023 the government underestimated the number of non-EU nationals arriving by 70,000, while that figure rose to 91,000 for the year ending December 2023.

Differences in estimation of immigration and actual figure

GovUK

As a result, immigration estimates have been revised upwards.

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Immigration estimates revised upwards

GOVUK

This comes after 32,900 people crossed the Channel in small boats in 2024 so far, up from 29,437 in 2023 but down from the high of 45,755 in 2022.

These figures give Labour more ammunition to attack their Tory predecessors for not getting a grip on immigration, likewise Reform UK.