Immigration to Britain hit a record high in 2022, Brexit a success?

Photo courtesy of Don Roth

Brexit was the cure in many Brits' minds to excessive immigration.  Jill Lawless (yes, that is the reporter's last name) for the Los Angeles Times outlines the latest immigration controversy in the United Kingdom.  The number of people moving to Britain hit a record high of more than 600,000 in 2022, which has renewed debate about immigration:

"Net migration — the difference between the number of people arriving and those leaving — was 606,000 for the year, according to the Office for National Statistics. A total of 1.2 million people moved to the U.K. in 2022, while 557,000 left.

The net figure is up from the 2021 tally of slightly fewer than 500,000. Britain's total population is about 67 million.

The statistics office said the record level was due to a `series of unprecedented world events throughout 2022 and the lifting of restrictions following the coronavirus pandemic.' . . . 

 

 

 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the immigration figure was `too high,' but he did not say what an ideal number would be. . . . 

 

The high figure revived debate about Britain’s departure from the European Union, which was motivated in part by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people from across Europe in the years before the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Supporters of Brexit said leaving the EU — membership in which gives citizens of any EU nation the right to live and work in all the others — would allow Britain to control its borders. Many who voted for Brexit thought immigration would fall, but the opposite has been true."

KJ