The updated section on immigration reflects the latest ONS statistics for 2025 published in May.
These show that the dramatic fall in net migration of 2024 continued in 2025. This led to a reduced total of under 171,000 for the year. This figure compares with over 900,000 at the peak in 2023. Asylum seekers arriving on small boats continue to be a small part of the overall immigration picture at 39,000. The section includes excellent analysis from the Migration Observatory at Oxford – well worth a visit to the site, if you haven’t seen it.
Surprisingly, despite the two-year downward trend, the majority (67%) of the public believed that immigration was increasing (as of January 2026). The wide gap between perception and reality may partly explain why immigration is the biggest concern of British adults. The latest edition of the Ipsos Key Issues Index puts immigration as the leading issue. Ipsos also found that the economy was the second most important issue. The government’s independent advisory body, MAC , found that immigration is generally good for the economy.
Encompass Europe kindly published my article “Lessons from Switzerland”. Following Keir Starmer’s pummelling in the local elections, does Labour need to be so cautious in its EU-UK ambitions? I argue that a British version of the Swiss option is the best that the government could aim for politically, as long as it maintains its three red lines.