Sir Keir Starmer has accused the Conservatives of using Brexit to run a “one-nation experiment in open borders” after eye-watering migration figures revealed that more than 900,000 people entered the UK in 2023.
The prime minister described the figures as “shocking” and pledged that his government would bring the numbers down with “hard graft” and by taking a tough approach with businesses.
Sir Keir made clear his view that voters had been betrayed after they were persuaded to narrowly back Brexit in 2016 with a promise that it would bring down immigration. He accused the Tories of deliberately pursuing the opposite policy.
In a press conference in Downing Street on Thursday, the prime minister said the Conservatives were responsible for a “different order of failure” that had happened “by design, not accident”.
He highlighted how his government had inherited a crisis in Britain’s prisons and a £22bn black hole in the public finances, but said the migration figures were worse.
The figures came less than 24 hours after new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch admitted that Brexit had failed and that her party had failed the country on immigration.
Sir Keir said: “Time and again the Conservative Party promised they would get the numbers down. Time and again they failed, and now the chorus of excuses has begun.”
He added: “A failure on this scale isn’t just bad luck, it isn’t a global trend or taking your eye off the ball – no, this is a different order of failure.
“This happened by design, not accident. Policies were reformed deliberately to liberalise immigration; Brexit was used for that purpose, to turn Britain into a one-nation experiment in open borders.”
The prime minister revealed that home secretary Yvette Cooper was in Iraq to sign a deal to eliminate the people-smuggling gangs, and warned that the still-rising cost of hotel accommodation for illegal migrants was “far too high”.
It came on a day when the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that the number of migrants entering the UK hit a record high in 2023 – 166,000 higher than previously thought.
It fell to 728,000 in the year to June 2024, a decline of 20 per cent. But this came after net migration figures for the year to June 2023 were revised upwards to 906,000 from the initial estimate of 740,000.
A similar change has been made to the provisional data for the year to December 2023, in which the number was initially estimated to be 685,000 and is now thought to have been 866,000 – an increase of 181,000.
Meanwhile, the cost of the UK’s asylum system has risen to £5bn, which represents the highest level of spending on record and is up by more than a third in a year, according to separate Home Office data published at the same time.
In a week in which the Labour government clashed with business leaders over the national insurance increase, which has been dubbed a “jobs tax”, and the difficulties of getting people on benefits back into work, Sir Keir sent them a strong warning that he would not allow companies to continue to rely on cheap foreign labour.
He told reporters: “For too long we’ve had this over-reliance on the easy answer of recruiting from abroad, and that’s got to change. And it’s a two-way street.
“We want to support employers. Of course we do. We want to grow the economy, and I don’t want to make it more difficult for businesses. But at the same time, and as I’ve said to them previously, they have to be involved in ensuring we’ve got the skills we need in this country, in the places that we need them.
“That will come partly by devolving skills, getting more employers and local representatives involved in the skills strategies that we need.”
The prime minister made it clear that he would ban businesses that “did not play ball” from hiring workers from abroad.
However, he defended the ONS from criticism over the way that it collates its figures following the huge undercalculation of the migration figures for 2023. And he also resisted calls from the Tories and Reform UK for the introduction of a migration cap.
The prime minister said: “I want to see immigration come down significantly. I said that before the election, I said that during the election, I say it again here today. That means bearing down on the influences that have driven it up this high, with the measures that I set out a moment ago.
“We had a supposed cap in place for the best part of a decade, and it didn’t have any meaningful impact on reducing immigration. So I don’t think setting an arbitrary cap, which is what previous governments have done, is the way forward. But do I want it to significantly reduce? Yes, I do, and that’s what our plan will achieve.”
The Tories hit back at his claims and questioned whether he was serious about bringing the numbers down.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “Keir Starmer has no credibility on this issue. He has ruled out a legal migration cap, and since he became prime minister, Channel boat crossings are up 23 per cent. And we learnt today that 6,000 more asylum seekers are in hotels – despite Starmer’s promise to end hotel use.
“We know the numbers are too high, and that is why Kemi Badenoch has set out that under her leadership, we will learn from past mistakes and adopt a new approach to lower immigration. This means a strict cap on numbers, making citizenship a privilege not a right, zero tolerance for foreign criminals, and an effective legal deterrent for illegal migration.”
The one politician hoping to capitalise on the row over the figures was Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who called them “horrendous”.
