The Persistent Challenge: Why UK Prime Ministers Struggle to Reduce Migration

“No more gimmicks. No more gesture politics. No more irresponsible, undeliverable promises.” These were the statements made by Sir Keir Starmer at last week’s Interpol conference concerning immigration. His remarks reinforced the stance he had articulated at the Labour party conference, where he declared: “It is the policy of this government to reduce both net migration and our economic dependency upon it.” Sir Keir is not the initial prime minister to issue what appears to be a straightforward commitment on immigration. The difficulty he faces is that nearly all of his predecessors failed to uphold their similar pledges. What leads him to believe his outcome will differ? Immigration promises have been a consistent feature in UK politics over the past 15 years. A commitment to lower net migration – defined as the number of individuals entering the UK for over 12 months, minus those departing – to the ‘tens of thousands’ was first introduced by Cameron in the 2010 Conservative manifesto and remained a part of the platform for the subsequent two elections. However, far from being achieved, migration figures almost consistently stayed above 200,000 and reached more than 300,000 in 2016 – precisely during the Brexit referendum campaign. “Once those numbers came out [Cameron] was finished” stated Alan Johnson, Labour’s Remain campaign chief. Brexit victor Boris Johnson was widely anticipated to deliver on his referendum assertion that voting Leave in the Brexit referendum was “the only way to take back control of immigration”. He abandoned the ‘tens of thousands’ target as part of his proposals for an “Australian points based system,” but in the period leading up to the 2019 election, while seeking a parliamentary majority to pass his Brexit deal, he insisted “numbers will come down because we’ll be able to control the system.” Instead, by the conclusion of his premiership in the early autumn of 2022, the figure had climbed to 607,000. That number would eventually exceed 700,000. Immigration: How British Politics Failed A new documentary reveals how the discussion surrounding this issue led to a political crisis. Rishi Sunak, during his time as prime minister, continued to pledge a reduction in legal migration despite these escalating figures, even vowing to implement a cap if he won the 2024 general election. So many commitments, so many unfulfilled. But what is the underlying reason? Cameron offers his perspective on this. Speaking in a new BBC documentary on the topic, he partly attributes it to the economic and employment crisis that began in 2012, which saw young people from Europe relocate to the UK for work. “The eurozone crisis was a real setback and that wasn’t something I had predicted,” Cameron remarked. Others interviewed – including Home Secretaries and Immigration Ministers such as Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick, and Damian Green, alongside senior civil servants and key government insiders – provided their own explanations. Some factors, they suggested, were unforeseen – for instance, the issuance of hundreds of thousands of visas to those fleeing Hong Kong in the early 2020s and Ukraine in 2022. However, a much more frequent explanation points to inherent political dysfunction. Former ministers described the conflicting objectives of major government departments, such as a Home Office striving to limit numbers, in contrast to a Treasury desiring tax revenue from more workers, a Health ministry relying on overseas staff to maintain NHS operations, and a Business department aiming to attract entrepreneurs. “There has been a fundamental dishonesty about immigration policy,” observed Anand Menon, Professor of European Politics at King’s College London. He added, “Many of the economic departments in government want more immigrants whilst the Home Office’s line tends to be, we want to stop immigration. Governments have been perfectly content to let those two narratives just sit side by side without explaining any of the trade-offs to the public.” The most staunch migration-skeptics contend that the deception runs even deeper – asserting it stems from a fundamental presumption embedded within the political system favoring large-scale migration. Discussing this matter, Braverman, who served as home secretary under Rishi Sunak between 2022 and 2023, informed us: “The broader objection that I would get from the prime minister and from the chancellor of the exchequer and other ministers, was that if we were going to cut immigration, then we would be actually cutting revenue”. She recounted “one conversation I had along the lines of, ‘Well, Suella, if you want to halve net migration to 300,000, you realise that’s going to cost us £3 billion. That’s the same as a cut to income tax.’” Former Immigration Minister Jenrick recounted a discussion he once had with Prime Minister Sunak: “He put forward the argument that mass migration was a good thing because undercutting British workers’ wages was helping to bring down inflation. I was shocked.” Sunak chose not to comment on Jenrick’s recollection of their conversation, but former Home Secretary James Cleverly disputed any suggestion that Sunak was unwilling to deliver on reducing legal migration: “The figures that came out in August of this year showed that year on year, every single metric that I was responsible for – illegal migration, net migration, asylum application numbers, growth rates, deportation rates – every single one of those accountability lines was trending in the right direction.” However, given the challenges in forecasting migration trends, how did numerical targets become so central to the entire immigration debate? Politicians initiated this emphasis, partly in response to public demand. Yet, it was also partly enabled by the emergence of a research and campaign group called Migration Watch. The organization was established in 2001 by Lord Green, a former UK ambassador, and David Coleman, an Oxford demography professor. They were concerned about the high number of people arriving in the UK. Green told us: “We wanted to see strict limits on immigration confined to people we really needed, and at a scale that was not going to disturb the nature of our very historic and peaceful country.” Green was eager to avoid accusations of bigotry or racism. “We were still living with the memory of Enoch Powell and the things that he had said,” he clarified. “Some of the things he said were right. “Of course, immigration was much too high and would have implications etcetera. But he overshot very seriously… so we had to be particularly careful not to appear to be part of any such movement.” Migration Watch’s approach was to redirect the UK’s ‘immigration debate’ from racial issues to its current focus – that of numerical data. Some suggest Green’s insight fundamentally altered the discussion. “Migration Watch were very, very important,” according to David Yelland, a former editor of The Sun, “because they put numbers on the problem and once you have numbers, you have an irresistible force in the newsroom.” In 2003, on the BBC’s Newsnight, Jeremy Paxman utilized Migration Watch’s talking points to repeatedly press Home Secretary David Blunkett, asking him to specify a maximum size for the UK population. Blunkett famously responded that he perceived ‘no obvious upper limit’. The ensuing controversy was ‘gold dust’ for Migration Watch, Green stated. Numerical figures were now at the core of the immigration debate. Tory leader Michael Howard also recognized the value in Migration Watch’s arguments. He concurred with their belief that the number of individuals entering Britain should be capped, promising an annual limit during the 2005 election. When David Cameron became Leader of the Opposition later that year, he initially resisted the urge to impose a cap, but he too became convinced that a specific number was achievable. Once this pledge was made, the inclusion of numbers in the immigration debate became fixed, for better or worse. It certainly did not benefit Cameron. The pledge would become, in the words of former No.10 Communications chief Craig Oliver, “a stick to beat him with” during the referendum campaign that ultimately ended his premiership. Thus, focusing on numbers – while theoretically appealing, proves problematic in practice. Nevertheless, others are exploring this approach: Switzerland currently faces a referendum – not anticipated before 2026 – on whether its population should be capped at 10 million, following a successful campaign by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party. And in the United States, Vice President-elect JD Vance has specified a figure for the number of undocumented individuals that the incoming second Trump administration intends to deport. It should “start with 1 million”, he has stated. However, in the UK, some question the effectiveness of how these figures are calculated. For instance, one former universities minister expressed frustration that international students are included in immigration statistics, given the temporary nature of their stay in the country. Others believe that net migration holds little meaning as an abstract figure. Statements that the UK population grows annually by a total equivalent to the population of a city like Oxford or Nottingham – popularized by Migration Watch and employed by politicians including Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage – do not accurately convey the dispersal of these arrivals, nor how effectively or poorly they are integrated into existing public services. Former Labour Home Secretary Charles Clarke is among those who believe the discussion about numbers is “entirely shallow”. “There’s a ‘Britain is full’ approach to things,” he commented, “and I thought it in a pernicious way actually sought to poison public debate.” Regarding Sir Keir, he has been careful not to attach specific figures to his recently issued promises to reduce both net migration and irregular migration. However, it appears probable that even without direct action from his government, net migration will decrease due to the Sunak government’s tightening of the Johnson-era visa system, and a slowdown in individuals from Hong Kong and Ukraine seeking entry. The prime minister also seems to be attempting to frame illegal boat crossings as a law-and-order issue rather than primarily an immigration issue. Yet, like leaders before him, Sir Keir will undoubtedly encounter further pressures during his leadership – whether from additional global conflicts, climate crises, or economic shocks – that displace people towards Britain. The lingering question is, when such events occur, will he be able to prevent numbers from rising again – and effectively address the challenges that have overcome so many prime ministers before him?