The United Kingdom recorded record net immigration in 2022, with 606,000 additional people, mainly from countries outside the European Union, according to figures from the British Office for National Statistics (ONS) published on Thursday 25 May.
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An unprecedented series of global events ... and the lifting of restrictions after the coronavirus pandemic have led to record levels of international immigration to the UK," the ONS said in a statement. "The main drivers of this increase are people coming to the UK from non-EU countries to work, study or for humanitarian reasons, including those coming from Ukraine and Hong Kong," the ONS adds.
'Taking back control'
According to the Office's estimates, in 2022 there were 1.2 million arrivals in the United Kingdom while 557,000 people left the country. Most of those arriving in the UK in 2022 came from non-EU countries (925,000). EU nationals are in second place, with 151,000 people. These figures put pressure on the Conservative government which had promised to reduce immigration and "take back control of the borders" after Brexit. "Everything shows that the government has completely lost control of our migration system," Labour MP Stephen Kinnock, in charge of the party's immigration file, criticised on Sky News television.
Two days before the announcement of these record figures, the government announced its intention to drastically restrict family reunification for foreign students. This measure, which will enter into force in January, concerns all students "with the exception of postgraduate researchers". In 2022, about 136,000 visas were issued to dependents of foreign students, up from 16,000 in 2019, according to government figures.
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We have seen an unprecedented increase in the number of dependents of students arriving in the country on visas," Suella Braverman, the right-wing interior minister, said on Tuesday. It considered that the new measures represented a "fair balance" and would allow "in the medium term" to return net migration to pre-Covid levels.
