Starmer Vows ‘Significant’ UK Immigration Cut, Blames Tories
(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised to cut net migration after the latest data showed the number of people arriving in the UK remained historically high despite curbs introduced by the last Conservative government.
Most Read from Bloomberg
In Traffic-Weary Toronto, a Battle Breaks Out Over Bike Lanes
New York City’s ‘Living Breakwaters’ Brace for Stormier Seas
The British premier said the blame lay with the Tories, whose 14 years in power he ended with a landslide election victory for Starmer’s Labour Party in the July general election. Pointing to a quadrupling of the annual net migration tally since the previous election in 2019, Starmer said the Conservatives had run the country as an “experiment” in open borders.
“I want to see immigration come down significantly,” Starmer said at a press conference in Downing Street. “Where the last government failed you, this one will not,” he said, promising to publish a white paper “imminently” outlining the government’s plans to get numbers down.
Starmer’s impromptu press conference, during which he announced a border deal with Iraq to help crack down on people-smuggling gangs, underscores the significance of immigration in the national dialog. The issue was a major factor in Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union, and successive Tory administrations since then oversaw a huge increase in numbers rather than the promised decline, contributing to their defeat to Labour earlier this year.
Data released Thursday heavily revised up net migration for the 12 months through June 2023 to a record 906,000, and estimated another 728,000 for the year through June 2024 — still far above the 184,000 logged in the year through December 2019, when the previous general election was held.
The revision for the year to June 2023 shows just how much migration to the UK soared in the years following Brexit and the pandemic. Previously, the ONS thought that a net 740,000 arrived over that time, and that the all-time high for net migration was 764,000 in the 2022 calendar year.
Kemi Badenoch, who was elected leader of the opposition this month following former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s resignation, said Wednesday her Conservative party had failed on immigration during its 14 years in power.
“During the last Conservative administration, we promised to bring numbers down,” she said. “We did not deliver that promise.” In its last few months in power, the Tory government imposed bans on most migrant students and care workers bringing dependents with them to the UK.
Badenoch said her party would review the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, and set a cap on net migration if the Tories won the next election.
--With assistance from Ellen Milligan.
(Updates with Badenoch comments from fifth paragraph.)
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
Musk’s Team of Budget-Slashing MAGA Billionaires Takes Shape
What Happens When US Hospitals Go Big on Nurse Practitioners
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
