Photo credit: the independent
Half of Britons think net migration to the UK is on the rise – despite it plummeting to its lowest level since the Covid pandemic.
The latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that, in the 12 months to June 2025, the number of people entering a country minus the number of people who leave each year was an estimated 204,000 – down 69 per cent from 649,000 a year earlier and the lowest annual figure since 2021. The dramatic fall has been caused by a big drop in people coming to Britain for work or study.
But new research conducted for think tank British Future shows the disconnect between the public perception of the number of people coming into the country and the reality. In a weighted survey of around 3,000 adults, 49per cent believed net migration had increased in the year up to May 2025.
Just 16 per cent of people correctly identified that it had fallen, and 51 per cent of people surveyed said that they thought migration would rise again next year.
The revelation comes ahead of the publication of updated statistics, due to be published on Thursday morning, which are expected to show that net migration has fallen even further, prompting calls from some Labour MPs to scrap |Shabana Mahmood’s radical immigration reforms.
Labour MPs hope to use the updated figures to pile pressure on the Home Office to reverse some of the new settlement rules that will make it harder for foreign nationals to stay in the UK.
