‘Anger and frustration’ from Tory MPs after calendar year migration record broken
Some Conservative MPs have expressed anger after official statistics showed net migration for a calendar year at a record high.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published data this morning showing that net migration stood at 606,000 in the year ending December 2022.
The figure came despite a Tory 2019 manifesto commitment to “bring overall numbers down”.
Net migration is the annual number of people arriving in the UK when both immigration and emigration are taken into account.
Following the update, immigration minister Robert Jenrick responded to an urgent question in the House of Commons in which he said the government remained committed to reducing migration to “sustainable levels”.
He told MPs: “That is a solemn promise we made to the British public in our manifesto, and we are unwavering in our determination to deliver it.”
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Mr Jenrick pointed to recent curbs on international students bringing family to the UK as a means to bring overall numbers down.
But Labour attacked the government for lacking a plan on migration.
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, also criticised Suella Braverman for not appearing in parliament to answer questions on the issue.
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A number of Tory MPs also lined up in the Commons to criticise the government’s approach.
Conservative former minister Sir Edward Leigh told the Commons: “Some people in the Treasury seem to think a good way to grow the economy is to fill the country up with more and more people, but this is bad for productivity and bad for British workers who are being undercut by mass migration from all over the world.
“Why is it that under the points-based system we allow people in earning only £26,000 a year but the median UK salary is £33,000 a year?
“Isn’t an obvious solution to this to insist that everybody who comes in is skilled and earns the median UK salary median and then we can boost productivity and get British people back to work?”
The Conservative MP for Cleethorpes, Martin Vickers, said while the “anger and frustration” of his constituents had been on illegal migration, “that anger and frustration will grow when they consider these legal migration figures”.
“We’re creating, roughly speaking, eight new parliamentary constituencies with this number and if that continues it’s clearly unsustainable,” he said.
Mr Jenrick was also criticised by former levelling up minister Simon Clarke, who tweeted that the immigration figures were “too high”.
“There is no popular mandate at all for this level of immigration to the UK,” he wrote.
Brendan Clarke-Smith, the Tory MP for Bassetlaw, also tweeted: “Need to see these numbers cut drastically going forwards.”
The ONS figures showed that total long-term immigration was estimated at around 1.2 million in 2022, while emigration was 557,000.
Most people arriving in the UK last year were non-EU nationals (925,000), followed by EU (151,000) and British (88,000), the ONS said.
However, the ONS added that despite the rise in immigration last year, its long-term international migration estimates “suggest a slowing in growth over the most recent quarters”.
Separate statistics from the Home Office also revealed that the backlog of asylum cases in the UK has hit a new record high.
A total of 172,758 people were waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of March 2023, up 57% compared to the end of March 2022, and the highest figure since current records began in 2010.
The number of people waiting more than six months for an initial decision stood at 128,812 at the end of March, up 76% year on year from 73,207 – another record high.
Mr Jenrick suggested that speeding up decisions could, in fact, act as a pull factor for people coming to the UK, saying it was “not correct” that processing illegal migrants’ claims faster would reduce arrivals and that “in all likelihood it’ll lead to an increase”.
But the immigration minister appeared to be at odds with Rishi Sunak over the delays.
Asked about the comments, Downing Street said tackling the asylum backlog is “the right approach”.
The prime minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “What we are focusing on is reducing the numbers, tackling that backlog is the right approach.”
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Downing Street also declined to apologise for failing on delivering the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto pledge to bring overall net migration numbers down after the introduction of post-Brexit border controls.
Asked whether the prime minister would like to apologise, his official spokesman told reporters: “We are working to bring those numbers down. We’ve set out a significant package to do that just this week as well as all the work that goes alongside stopping the boats.
“It’s also important to understand what sits beneath some of those numbers – 114,000 Ukrainians coming over for example, 52,000 British nationals from Hong Kong. We think that is something the public can be rightly proud of.
“At the same time, we need to strike the right balance about supporting our economy with getting those numbers down, so we recognise that number’s up too high.”
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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