Unsustainable net migration figure falls to… unsustainable net migration figure. That’s how voting Briton will feel about the latest numbers, published on 22 May by the Office for National Statistics. Net migration has halved from 860,000 in the year ending December 2023 to 431,000 in the year ending December 2024, the ONS estimates (though we should allow for a rather large error margin here).
The general view, even among the left-leaning, is that Britain has been operating with an inflow of immigrants over and above what is palatable for far too long now. Not one year this century has the median Brit bravely stated: I am happy with these numbers. That’s just the mood music.
So, will these new numbers help the government as it flounders in the polls? The direction of travel is positive, both when it comes to making good on their manifesto promises and holding off Nigel Farage. But there is a catch. Publishing the numbers draws attention to the net, and serves to remind voters that it is still too high, no matter the positive directional trend. This in turn gives Reform’s rhetoric a mental airing. One week of press coverage at the start of June in 2016 about then-high migration numbers was enough to shift the polls from Remain to Leave. Voters care, and are not particularly interested in the nuance.
The truth about immigration is that Labour has already lost the argument on net numbers. So what can the party do? It needs to reorient the argument on their terms, rather than aping Nigel Farage in a kind of Reform-lite manner. If they turn to the country and say “this is happening because we have been too reliant on overseas labour, and we have neglected homegrown workers, so we plan to re-equip and re-empower the domestic workforce” Labour can wrest the conversation away from Reform. Instead, the government has so far been dancing to the Faragista tune on immigration. This only elevates him further.
[See more: America’s broken commonwealth]
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