British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced plans to reduce the number of people legally migrating to the UK, calling current levels "too much"
"I want to bring the levels of legal migration down," British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told BBC interviewers on May 20, a few days before the expected release of a predicted "record rise" in migration numbers from the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
When asked, "how much is too much?" by the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason, Sunak refused to be drawn, just repeating again that the numbers were "too high," and that he intended to bring both "illegal migration" and "legal migration" levels in the UK under the numbers he had "inherited."
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In fact, since the UK left the European Union, net migration to the UK has almost doubled. Although much of the latest government policy has concentrated on what they term "illegal migration," (such as migrants reaching the UK without papers on small boats across the Channel) the number of people entering through legal routes, such as refugee visas, student visas and skilled worker permits, are far greater.
'Record highs' expected
According to the right-wing newspaper The Daily Telegraph, net migration is expected to have hit a "record high" in the UK over the past year. In June 2022, net migration figures had already exceeded 500,000. The numbers coming this week are expected to fall somewhere between 700,000 and one million.
Back in 2019, during the last election, the Conservative party also pledged to lower the overall number of migrants coming to the UK to under the figures at that time, which stood at 226,000. Sky News published analysis this weekend demonstrating that net migration has risen under each Conservative leader since David Cameron, despite repeated pledges to bring numbers down and control migration.
The fear of uncontrolled immigration to Britain and a desire to "control Britain’s borders" are considered two of the main issues pushing the "leave" campaign to victory during the 2016 Brexit referendum, which ultimately brought David Cameron to resign as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party.
Legal routes
But since Cameron's resignation and the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, immigration to Britain has continued to rise while the country's ability to send migrants back to the EU under the Dublin treaty rules -- applied while Britain was part of the EU -- has been scrapped.
In the BBC interview, Sunak acknowledged that some of the increase in the intervening years could be attributed to people arriving from Ukraine and Hong Kong, which Sunak said he was "proud" of. The BBC reports that about 170,000 Ukrainians have made the UK their home since the war began in February 2022, and about 76,000 have arrived on resettlement schemes from Hong Kong, which used to be a British protectorate but has since reverted to Chinese control.
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Around 270,000 people also came to the UK to study, reports the BBC. The ONS told the BBC that they thought that the lifting of restrictions after the COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed to a "bump" in the numbers of students arriving in the UK.
The UK’s Home Secretary (Interior Minister) Suella Braverman has also repeatedly expressed interest in lowering the number of migrants arriving in Britain, which she said is too high.
This is partly what the latest "illegal immigration bill" is designed to do. The bill has passed its reading in parliament’s lower houses, but is due to be scrutinized by the upper House of Lords on Wednesday, and then during four dates in June.
Business calls for longer-lasting visa schemes
Some business leaders are also pushing the government to ease restrictions and visa schemes to allow more foreign labor to enter the UK. Julian Metcalfe, CEO of the takeaway food chain Itsu, recently told the BBC that difficulties finding staff in the gastronomy and farming sectors were pushing up prices and causing restaurants to struggle.
"The cost, particularly for places like Itsu, is going to be very painful for all of us," said Metcalfe. He called on the government to introduce two-year working visas, reported the BBC.
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Sunak is hoping that Britain increases its collaboration with the EU to reduce the numbers of migrants crossing into the UK. Last week, at a Council of Europe meeting in Iceland, Sunak called for greater cooperation. After the summit, reported the BBC, Downing Street said that agreements had been put in place to increase cooperation on issues like cross-border crime and people smuggling.
The opposition Labour Party leader Sir Kier Starmer said on Monday (May 22) on BBC Radio 4 that his party also wanted to get immigration to sensible levels, but refused to discuss precise numbers.