Net migration to UK rises to 333,000 - second highest on record

                                  

Net migration to the UK rose to 333,000 in 2015, according to Office for National Statistics estimates - the second highest figure on record.

Net migration is the difference between the number of people coming to the UK for at least a year and those leaving.

The figure for EU-only net migration was 184,000, equalling its record high.

Boris Johnson said David Cameron had been "cynical" to promise to bring net migration down to below 100,000 while the UK was part of the EU.

Speaking to BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg, the Conservative MP and former London Mayor said it was "cynical and unacceptable to say you can fulfil that pledge".

"I think that they (the figures) show the scandal of the promise made by politicians repeatedly that they could cut immigration to the tens of thousands and then to throw their hands up in the air and say there's nothing we can do because Brussels has taken away our control of immigration," he said.

Home Office minister James Brokenshire said David Cameron's renegotiation of the UK's membership of the EU, which will see restrictions placed on the benefits new arrivals can claim and a crackdown on "sham marriages", would "close back-door routes" into the country.

"Leaving the EU is absolutely no panacea or silver bullet," he added, telling BBC News that net migration from outside the EU was higher than from within it and leaving would "wreck the economy and harm jobs".

Source: BBC