ROSS CLARK: How the Brexit ministers who ‘took again management’ misplaced management of our borders

You could be forgiven for assuming that, after four consecutive Conservative election wins and a victory in the EU referendum for the Leave camp, net migration would have fallen drastically. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Far from dropping, the number of people entering this country under successive Tory administrations spiralled out of control. In 2010, the year David Cameron took power, net migration stood at 252,000, a record high. By the time Rishi Sunak called in the removal men earlier this year, the equivalent figure had got within touching distance of one million a year – 906,000 to be exact, a new all-time record.

So what explains the leap?

The migration debate in this country is often focused on illegal migration. The number of people who cross the Channel in small boats has certainly mushroomed in recent years, from virtually zero before 2018 to just shy of 30,000 last year.

Yes, it is a disgrace that so many people are being allowed to enter Britain illegally – and not sent back even if their asylum applications fail. But illegal migration forms a relatively small part of overall migration. While asylum applications have risen from 40,000 in 2016 to just over 100,000 per year now, this number still accounts for less than 10 per cent of the 1.2 million who arrived in the year to June 2024.

The vast majority of migrants instead came to work (417,000) or study (375,000) – all perfectly legally. The truth is that the spike in migration we have witnessed in recent years is largely down to a single piece of legislation introduced in August 2020 following the onset of the Covid pandemic.

While net migration fell to ‘just’ 111,000 in the year to mid-2020, thanks to the travel restrictions occasioned by the pandemic, the introduction of the ‘health and care worker visa scheme’ by the then-Conservative government soon turbo-charged it.

It is a disgrace that so many people are being allowed to enter Britain illegally, but illegal migration forms a relatively small part of overall migration. Pictured, migrants are helped ashore from an RNLI lifeboat in Dungeness in 2021

The visa scheme was intended to be a short-term measure to help the NHS recover from Covid but the visas were issued on very generous terms that enabled workers to bring dependents and boasted of ‘offering a pathway to settlement’ should workers remain employed – an offer that, not surprisingly, many eagerly took up.

In December, 2021, the scheme was extended further – ironically by then home secretary, Priti Patel, who was simultaneously promising to crack down on migration.

It is, of course, ironic too that Boris Johnson – the Leave camp’s most high profile Brexiteer, with it’s slogan of ‘Take back control’ – should have presided over such an apparent lack of ‘control’ as prime minister in 2021. 

When Britain was in the EU, the immigration figures were dominated by workers from Eastern Europe.

Having regained ‘control’ of Britain’s migration policy, Boris moved to attract workers from further afield.

In April 2022, he travelled to India to start negotiations on a trade deal with that country – and was happy to use the prospect of a relaxation in migration as a bargaining chip.

‘I have always been in favour of talented people coming to this country,’ the then-prime minister told reporters.

‘We are short to the tune of hundreds of thousands of people in our economy and we need to have a progressive approach and we will.’

While asylum applications have risen from 40,000 in 2016 to just over 100,000 a year now, this number accounts for less than 10 per cent of the 1.2 million who arrived in the year to June 2024

As the number of people coming to Britain to work has increased sharply, so has the number of Britons who are out of work, something even Sir Keir Starmer appears to have recognised

The health and care worker visa scheme had the effect of greatly increasing migration from developing nations. In the most recent year for which numbers are available, the countries which sent the most migrants were India (240,000), Nigeria (120,000), Pakistan (101,000), China (78,000) and Zimbabwe (36,000).

While the influx of health workers has helped out the NHS, it put pressure on our over-subscribed public services, from GP surgeries and schools to public transport and the housing sector.

It also presented an ethical issue, as poaching medical staff from developing countries denuded their own health systems.

And was Britain’s economy really short of workers in any case?

As the number of people coming to Britain to work has increased sharply, so the number of Britons who are out of work has risen commensurately. In November, 2018, there were 3.65 million people on out-of-work benefits (either Jobseekers’ Allowance, Incapacity Benefit or Universal Credit). That number has shot up to 5.79 million, much of it thanks to people being declared unfit to work.

The rise began before either Brexit or Covid and seems to have coincided with significant numbers of people being moved on to Universal Credit.

And many people appear to be gaming the system, something even Sir Keir Starmer appears to have recognised, as evidenced by his article promising to tackle worklessness.

It seems to be far too easy to get written off in Work Capability Assessments – many of which are conducted over

the telephone rather than in person. Not that Starmer came up with a solution – the Government’s white paper on welfare reform published on Tuesday put off the problem to another day.

The overall picture, then, is of Britain sucking in ever more migrant workers to take up jobs which employers are struggling to fill because increasing numbers of Britain are being signed off sick.

It is very different from what the Leave campaign promised in 2016. Brexit should have helped Britain to reduce migration, over which it had no control while we were in the EU. Instead, our government and authorities are looking even more powerless than before.