Even if web migration reaches zero, voters is not going to forgive Labour whereas 1000’s maintain crossing the Channel: STEPHEN GLOVER

What would happen to the prospects of Nigel Farage and Reform UK if net migration were to dip to almost zero, as some forecasters are saying could happen as soon as the end of this year?

Is it possible that this failing Labour Government could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat if it were seen by voters to have slashed the stratospherically high rates of immigration of recent years?

It is what some people inside Labour are hoping, and what some progressive journalists are writing. They believe that Farage’s most popular policy is about to be pulled from under him, and that he will be left suspended in thin air.

Hopes in government circles were raised when the Office for National Statistics recently announced that net immigration had fallen sharply to 204,000 in the year to June 2025. It had been 649,000 in the year to June 2024, and 906,000 in the year to June 2023.

Expectations have soared in recent weeks following forecasts that more people will soon be leaving the country than arriving. According to the University of Warwick data analyst James Bowes, this could happen as early as December. He suggests that by the end of the year there might be a net outflow of 62,000.

Could this be true? Might what has often been people’s most pressing concern over the past decade finally be miraculously receding? Has Nigel Farage’s fox been well and truly shot?

I very much doubt it.

Of course it’s true that net immigration is significantly down from the unprecedented heights it reached during the dying days of Tory rule. The credit for this should largely go to Rishi Sunak and his ministers, who belatedly introduced measures that have drastically cut legal immigration.

Not that this will stop Labour from claiming the credit. So far, this Government has done almost nothing off its own bat, though the recent announcement by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood about stricter rules on indefinite leave to remain is likely to have an effect.

So, yes, the figures are falling. They will almost certainly come down further, though I’d be surprised if James Bowes’ prediction were fulfilled. We’ve had duff forecasts before.

A change, possibly only temporary, is nonetheless taking place. The Office for Budget Responsibility – not renowned for accurate crystal ball gazing – may well have to revise downwards its forecast of net migration of 262,000 in the 12 months to June this year.

What seems to be happening is that, in addition to the last government’s tighter rules, quite a lot of recent arrivals have decided that they don’t like it very much in Keir Starmer’s and Rachel Reeves’ gloomy Britain. Poles in particular are returning in large numbers to their own more economically vibrant country.

A sizeable number of British nationals have also decided to head away from our shores as long as the dead hand of Labour hovers over us. Some 257,000 departed in the year ending December 2024, which is more than three times the previous estimate.

Whatever the reasons behind the lower figures, I am sure that the migration debate is far from over, and I doubt whether Reform UK’s anti-immigration policies are about to fall out of favour with many voters.

The first, and weightiest, explanation is that Labour’s feeble measures have so far failed to bring down the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats. The figure for 2025 was the second highest on record.

It’s true that illegal immigration has historically been a fairly small proportion of all immigration. Yet in a recent YouGov poll almost half of respondents thought that immigration to the UK is mostly illegal rather than legal. This is not the case.

The reason for the false perception is surely that the sight of people coming illicitly across the Channel irritates voters far more than those coming by an authorised route.

They don’t like the idea of interlopers (often young men) sneaking into our country, and then being put up in fancy hotels or being allowed to roam the streets while possibly flouting the law, and occasionally posing a threat to young women and girls.

Even the BBC, which can hardly be said to have taken a hard line against high levels of legal immigration, has provided ample coverage of the boats coming across the Channel and the gangs that are behind them.

Unless the Government succeeds in stopping the boats, immigration is bound to remain a contentious issue for many, even if the overall figures continue to come down.

Let us imagine that by some miracle Labour did manage to reduce the boats to a trickle. Would that put an end to public anxiety about uncontrolled immigration? I don’t think so.

For one thing, numerous special interest groups depend on migrants. The business models of many universities are built on the assumption of endless

supplies of foreign students. Care homes and construction companies are already telling ministers they can’t survive with current lower rates of immigration.

The Government, which is doing little or nothing to induce the 9 million people of working age who are not in employment to join the labour force, may well heed these siren calls.

Then there are the rising numbers of asylum seekers, of whom only around 40 per cent come across the Channel. Many arrive here legally on short visas and then apply to stay. A record 110,051 migrants claimed asylum in the year to September, about half of whom were granted leave to remain in the UK.

For all these reasons, levels of immigration will almost certainly remain high, despite a temporary downward blip. If you don’t believe me, listen to Professor Brian Bell, chairman of the

Migration Advisory Committee, an official body that gives independent advice to the Government.

He recently suggested that the annual net migration figure would jump ‘in the medium term’ to around 300,000, after nearly three years of sharp falls. 

This would be a high figure by the standards of the past 20 years. Higher, in fact, than in any year except for the one before 2016, when Britain voted for Brexit.

Immigration may be coming down from the mind-­boggling figures in the last days of Tory rule but, as things stand, it is going to settle at a number that many will still consider astronomical.

Interestingly, the other day a More In Common poll found that a large majority of voters believe that immigration is increasing despite the decline in the number of people entering the UK.

They know that the boats are arriving in ever greater numbers, and they can see how uncontrolled immigration has transformed their country over recent years. They won’t be persuaded that Keir Starmer and Shabana Mahmood have solved the issue, for the simple reason that they haven’t.

It goes without saying that Reform shouldn’t be a one-issue party. They need an array of policies. The Tories, who are equally exercised about migration these days, are in the same boat.

But whatever Labour MPs may think, and whatever metropolitan scribblers may write, the British people aren’t persuaded that the problems of mass immigration have gone away.