Migration has risen to 504,000 people in the United Kingdom in the last year. It is the highest number since the Brexit agreement was signed and has surpassed the previous record, which in 2015 stood at just over 330,000 people. Statistics show that the growth is due to an increase in non-European Union citizens.
An estimated 1.1 million immigrants arrived in 2022 through June, an increase of 435,000 over the previous year. The largest proportion of those who left Britain were citizens of the European Union (EU).
The three new visa schemes proposed by the British government - for Ukrainians fleeing the war, for the resettlement of Afghan nationals and a route for British citizens from Hong Kong - added about 186,000 to the number of arrivals, according to the ONS.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) attributed the migration record to the post-Covid recovery in travel and a surge in arrivals of international students who had been studying remotely during the pandemic.
"A series of global events have impacted international migration patterns in the 12 months to June 2022. Taken together, these were unprecedented," said Jay Lindop, Director of the ONS Center for International Migration.
"Migration from non-EU countries, specifically students, is driving this increase," Lindop said, adding that "the many, independent factors contributing to migration at the moment mean that it is too early to say. if this image will last".
Concern about the impact of immigration was one of the big drivers behind Britain's vote to leave the European Union in 2016. At the time, then-Prime Minister David Cameron had failed for several years to achieve a net migration target of less than 100,000 a year.
Migration levels have been in the headlines in recent weeks in the country, as some businessmen called for the government to liberalize immigration to help boost growth. Rishi Sunak rejected the petition on Monday, stressing the need to tackle illegal immigration to build confidence in Britain's immigration system.
Sunak and Suella Braverman, the Minister of the Interior, are under pressure to deal with the arrival of irregular migrants through the Channel. Earlier this month Britain signed an agreement with France to step up efforts to detain people coming that way.
The figures published by the government this Thursday show that 33,029 people were detected arriving in small boats through the Canal between January and September of this year. The month of August was when the highest number of boat arrivals was recorded.
