Immigration surges after influx from inside the EU

More evidence of a surge in immigration to Britain from inside the EU emerged yesterday with the publication of new official figures. EU citizens were largely behind a leap in the numbers of migrants coming to Britain in the year to March, which included a statistically significant increase in Romanians and Bulgarians.

Immigration from the two Eastern European countries has more than doubled to 28,000 in the year to March from 12,000 in the previous year. Arrivals from within the EU increased by 44,000 to 214,000 in the period. The figures were published by the Office for National Statistics.

David Cameron announced a goal to cut net migration, the difference between migrants leaving and arriving in Britain, to below 100,000 by May next year. But net immigration rose to 243,000 in the year to March.

Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary said, ‘David Cameron and Theresa May must now admit that they have utterly broken their grand promises. This massive gap between government rhetoric and the reality, as well as no serious action to tackle the root causes of anxiety about immigration is destroying public trust.’

Immigration and security minister James Brokenshire said, ‘The new Immigration Act continues our reforms by limiting benefits and services for illegal immigrants and making it easier to remove those with no right to be here by reducing the number of appeals.’

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch UK said, ‘Getting the numbers down is proving even more difficult than expected. Either we get immigration under control or we accept that in the next 20 years we will have to build 12 new cities the size of Birmingham.’

Source: Metro, 29 August.