London, by Thanasis Gavou

The net number of incoming migrants in the UK in 2022, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This is the highest such figure ever recorded in the country, despite Brexit and the Conservative government’s tough immigration rhetoric.

In relation to 2021 and the net number of 504,000 immigrants, the new balance is an increase of around 20%.

It is noted that in the pre-Brexit era, the annual average of net migration was between 200 and 250 thousand people.

In total, the number of incoming immigrants exceeded 1.16 million, while 557,000 were residents who emigrated from the United Kingdom to other countries.

The vast majority of arrivals, i.e. 925,000, were immigrants (and refugees seeking asylum) from countries outside the European Union. 151,000 were from EU member states and 88,000 British repatriates.

As Jay Lindop, deputy director of the ONS International Migration Centre, commented, “an unprecedented series of global events during 2022 and the lifting of post-Covid restrictions has led to international migration to the UK in record levels”.

He added that the main factors for high immigration from non-EU countries were the search for work, studies at British universities, but also humanitarian reasons, such as in the cases of visas being issued to Ukrainian refugees and persecuted citizens from Hong Kong.

Work visas in the 12 months to March 2023 they were 345,451, significantly increased from 162,588 in the previous corresponding period. Other types of visas, including humanitarian ones for refugees from Ukraine, Afghanistan and Syria, rose from 51,031 to 265,270 over the same period.

On Wednesday the main opposition Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of “losing control of immigration”, despite earlier pledges to reduce net immigration to less than 245,000 – a pledge Mr Sunak has recently avoided repeating .

And the competent Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman, has stated that she wants to reduce the number of immigrants to tens of thousands, while yesterday she announced a ban on issuing visas to dependent family members of most postgraduate students from abroad (it will be effective from January 2024).

Immigration is a key point of intra-party friction in the ruling Conservative Party, as industry and business point to major gaps in Britain’s labor market and services following the end of free movement for EU citizens in the post-Brexit era.