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Figures show that the UK has become easier to get into than some other countries in the EU – despite us supposedly taking back control
In 2015, Angela Merkel threw open Germany’s doors to more than a million asylum seekers, declaring: “Wir schaffen das”: we’ll manage. The following year, the UK voted to leave the European Union, which was widely interpreted as a call to restrict immigration.
But, less than a decade after “Mutti” rolled out the willkommen fußmatte, Germany has just opted to dramatically tighten controls on its borders, raising huge question marks over the EU’s cherished principle of free movement. Meanwhile, the UK is struggling under the weight of record immigration.
To pile irony upon irony, it would appear that a country attached to the Afro-Eurasian landmass, which is a fully paid-up subscriber to the single market and surrounded by nine others, is finding it easier to control its borders than “a fortress built by nature”.
In 2022, there was a big surge in net migration across Europe when the movement restrictions that had been put in place during Covid were dropped. Last year, numbers began to normalise. Net migration fell by 59 per cent in Sweden, 55 per cent in Germany, 52 per cent in Austria, 49 per cent in Denmark and 43 per cent in Belgium. (It flatlined in France and Italy but at a much lower base.)
However, in the UK it fell by just 11 per cent, with net migration equating to 10 new migrants per 1,000 people in the population over the course of 2023, the second-highest level on record. This means that net migration to the UK was equivalent to 1 per cent of the population last year, compared with 0.8 per cent in Germany, 0.5 per cent in Italy and 0.3 per cent in France.
Immigration is a hugely complicated area. Comparing net migration can be difficult because each country’s statistical agency uses different methodologies to collect their data. Figures are often revised. However, the data strongly suggest that in recent years it has become easier to get into the UK than comparable EU countries.
How did the European country that moved first to wrestle back control of its borders become one of the big four that ushered in the biggest number of foreigners per capita last year? The list of Tory prime ministers who promised to crack down on immigration is long and damning. Were they being disingenuous or was their failure to deliver a result of circumstances beyond their control?
When the UK was part of the EU, we had much tighter rules on immigration from non-EU countries in order to compensate for arrivals taking advantage of free movement within the European bloc. Since leaving the EU, the government decided to ease the criteria for non-EU nationals, arguably over-compensated and is now starting to tighten up again.
In other words, Brexit may have given the UK greater control of legal migration but the switch was hard to calibrate and was further complicated by travel restrictions imposed to control the Covid pandemic. But it’s also clear that a procession of politicians has been far from straight with the public on this topic.
At the beginning of 2021, the UK adopted a new immigration system, which was branded, in a triumph of style over substance, an “Australian-style, points-based” scheme. In reality, it was a pretty run-of-the-mill, employer-driven work permit of the kind that exists all over the world.
“The new system undoubtedly represented a liberalisation for non-EU citizens,” says Madeleine Sumption, the director of Oxford University’s Migration Watch. This, needless to say, was not how it was sold to the public.
Previously, non-EU citizens coming to work in the UK could only get employer-sponsored work visas if they were planning to take up graduate jobs earning at least £30,000 (there were some exceptions for areas like nursing). Under the new scheme, the skills requirements were reduced to allow applicants in middle-skilled jobs (which include skilled trades, technicians and the like) and the salary threshold fell from £30,000 to £25,600.
The disruption caused by Covid lockdowns clouded the effect of this switch. But when travel restrictions were lifted, the proof of the pudding was in the greeting: 1.2 million residency visas were issued in the 12 months to June 2022, higher than in any year since records began.
Most of the increase came from a two-thirds rise in the number of visas issued to non-EU nationals, including a nearly 80 per cent increase in non-EU work migration. In a recent interview with the BBC, Tony Blair, the former prime minister, claimed no modern developed country can completely curb immigration and any politician promising to do so was being dishonest.
“And, by the way, if you do end up trying to do this, which is what we’ve done with Brexit, what’s the result?” he asked rhetorically. “We’ve now got higher levels of immigration than ever before and we’ve swapped out usually single people coming from Europe to work in things like the hospitality sector for families from Asia and Africa.”
Comparisons between the immigration policies of the UK and EU countries are notoriously tricky. Sumption points out that countries may have exactly the same immigration policies but have vastly different levels of migration just because one country is more attractive than another. A very basic example would be that Japan and the UK both have language requirements. But far more people speak English and it’s easier to learn than Japanese.
The UK’s universities are widely considered to be among the best in the world, which results in them attracting a large number of foreign students – although this trend has clearly been exacerbated by universities cross-subsidising the cost of educating domestic students (for whom tuition fees are capped) with increasing numbers of foreign students (for whom they aren’t).
What’s more, the UK has far more historical links to different countries, which means there’s more family migration. Sumption also points out that policies may look similar on paper but be implemented differently. This is true both between countries and within the same country over time.
A good example was the UK’s new regime for care workers from non-EU countries. This was brought in after Brexit to compensate for the reduction in care workers moving here from the EU. The policy was introduced in early 2022 and included a minimum salary and a requirement for workers to have a reputable sponsor.
“The reality was chaos,” says Sumption. “Workers were not being paid what they should have been and some of their sponsors were far from reputable.”
The result was a huge spike in the numbers of care workers coming to the country, which peaked in 2023 and then tailed off once the Home Office was instructed to apply a little more scrutiny to the sector.
Numbers are now falling. Nevertheless, care workers who move to the UK are allowed to join a pathway to permanent residence. In Germany, by contrast, their visas would only ever be temporary.
The area in which it is hardest to make direct comparisons is work visas. Most countries have vast smorgasbords of different categories; one visa may, therefore, look relatively restrictive but operate alongside another that is more liberal.
French work visas are more liberal than the UK’s in some areas, such as self-employment (which on the whole is not possible in the UK except for some specific start-ups). However, they are more restrictive in others; France’s main work visa for employees has a relatively high salary threshold of around €53,000 (£44,700).
The German salary threshold is roughly similar to the UK’s at €45,300 (£38,200), and also has some exemptions for occupations in which there are labour shortages. Germany also offers a job-search visa. However, the UK’s flexible labour laws are also considered a draw compared with, for example, Germany where workers need very specific qualifications to be considered for a whole range of jobs.
When it comes to asylum, the reality is that all European countries are being buffeted by geopolitical forces over which they have little control. Germany accepted a million asylum seekers in 2015 amid the war in Syria, and another million in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. The UK has also taken in large numbers from Ukraine and Afghanistan as well as Hongkongers escaping from the Chinese crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.
Asylum approval rates for migrants arriving in the UK hit a high of 75 per cent in the year ending September 2023, according to analysis of Home Office and Eurostat data. This compares with 64 per cent in Germany, 45 per cent in Italy and 31 per cent in France.
The high rate has been partly attributed to the UK’s inability to negotiate a new “Dublin” returns agreement with the EU. This makes it harder for the UK to reject asylum seekers on the basis of them having passed through a safe third country in Europe.
Sumption adds that qualitative research involving interviews with asylum seekers suggests those travelling to the UK may not have a firm idea of the country’s various immigration policies but rather a broad sense that it is a tolerant and welcoming country.
But, as well as being undermined by the UK’s inherent attractiveness, successive home secretaries who tried to get a grip on the problem have also had to contend with their own colleagues. One former Tory Home Office adviser says that the cabinet would agree in the abstract that numbers needed to come down but each secretary of state would make their case for a variety of exceptions.
The Department of Health and Social Care was always in need of more nurses and care workers; the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy wanted more hospitality staff; the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs wanted more fruit pickers; the Department for Education wanted more foreign students, the Ministry of Defence wanted more visas for Afghan citizens who worked with the UK government in Afghanistan. The list went on and on.
“One time we had Nadine Dorries, as secretary of state for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, strenuously arguing for unskilled workers visas to be issued for road workers to help in the roll-out of fibre broadband around the country,” he adds. “We managed to see that off because they couldn’t get around the minimal language requirements.”
The other departments were backed up in the demands they made on the Home Office by the Treasury, which worried about labour shortages in various sectors and the possible hit to the economy – already reeling from Brexit, Covid and the energy shock – that would result from a clampdown on immigration. Figures released by the Office for Budget Responsibility this week showed that the average migrant worker pays more in tax than they receive in public services throughout their lives compared with British-born workers – although low-paid migrant workers were found to cost taxpayers more than £150,000 each by the time they hit state pension age.
Earlier this year, the OBR, on whose figures the Treasury relies, was accused of overstating the economic benefit of recent migrants by more than £8 billion – claims denied by the quango.
And thus immigration became the topic most likely to inspire Tories to form a circular firing squad in the dying days of the last government. At one point, Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, claimed that Rishi Sunak reneged on his agreement with her to introduce harsher immigration measures in exchange for her support in the 2022 Conservative leadership contest.
“After the Covid lockdowns we could see that the hockey stick was starting to tilt upwards and the immigration numbers were about to take off,” says the adviser, who at this stage was outside the Home Office. “We said the rules had to change right away. The government just ignored us. They belatedly raised income thresholds but it was too late to make a difference ahead of the general election.”
In fairness, the Tory party’s cognitive dissonance about how to address immigration appears to be mirrored in the wider population where worries about open borders helped fuel the rise of Reform in a country that is among the most tolerant of immigrants in the rich world.
Ask the general public whether immigration has been too high over the past 10 years, as YouGov regularly does, and 69 per cent agree (up from 54 per cent this time two years ago). An inflection point was reached earlier this year when 52 per cent of those who responded to an immigration attitudes tracker from Ipsos and British Future said they now support reducing immigration, up from 48 per cent in 2023.
But ask people what type of immigration should be cut and you quickly hit a snag. Over half of people (51 per cent) would like the number of doctors and nurses coming to the UK from overseas to increase, while just 15 per cent would like it to decrease. The split for care workers is 42 per cent supporting an increase and 18 per cent in favour of a decrease.
But the list extends far beyond the health sector. Fewer than three in 10 people support reducing the number of computer experts, teachers, academics, construction labourers, lorry drivers, restaurant and catering staff, or seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers coming to the UK.
What’s more, there’s a stark political divide. While seven in 10 Conservatives want reductions, most Labour supporters don’t, which suggests that, although Sir Keir Starmer pledged to tackle the issue, he’ll be under less pressure to do so than his Tory predecessors.
Meanwhile, mass immigration has become the axis around which all European politics revolves. In a recent interview, Jens Spahn, a former member of Merkel’s government, said: “The mass irregular migration since 2015 has destabilised and overwhelmed German society.”
In August, three festival-goers were killed in Solingen by a Syrian Isis-sympathiser who appears to have evaded deportation. German political experts have linked this horrific crime with a sharp increase in support for the AfD (Alternative for Deutschland), which sent shock waves through Europe by winning the Thuringia state elections at the beginning of September.
Centrist parties, like the Christian Democratic Union, of which Spahn is a member, have been forced into a tougher stance on immigration in the hope of halting the rise of far-Right parties. “The effect has been a series of EU policies centred on two axes,” according to Armida van Rij, a senior research fellow at Chatham House.
The first has been the outsourcing of immigration management – a series of agreements with countries such as Libya and Tunisia aimed at preventing immigrants from reaching the bloc. The second has been to frame migration as a security threat.
“This prompted a number of policies on border controls and deterrence of migrants, including the new pact on migration and asylum adopted by the EU Council in May, the biggest overhaul of EU migration policy in over a decade,” according to Van Rij.
Germany is not alone in tightening its borders. Austria, Denmark, Italy, Slovenia and Sweden are also restricting free movement and implementing border checks in an attempt to counter terrorist threats and criminal gangs.
Schengen allows member countries to temporarily reintroduce border controls “in the event of a serious threat to public policy or internal security”. However, it looks like such events are becoming the norm rather than the exception.
Since 2006, member states have submitted 441 notifications to re-introduce border checks, according to the European Commission’s own records. All but 35 of these have been filed since 2015. Eight Schengen countries, including Germany, currently have checks in place.
The figures have prompted questions about whether the Schengen arrangement remains viable in its current form.
Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, hit out at Germany’s most recent announcement, branding it “unacceptable” and a “de facto suspension of the Schengen agreement on a large scale”.
Back in the UK, there are signs that the introduction of some tougher new rules in recent months is resulting in immigration numbers starting to fall. “The Labour manifesto was light on detail when it came to its plans on economic and family migration, [but] those hopeful for a more liberal approach to migration policy may be disappointed,” says Ashley Fleming, a partner at the law firm Harper Macleod.
At the end of July, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, confirmed the Government’s intention to retain several recent changes to the immigration rules. These include restrictions on the majority of international students from bringing family members to the UK and restricting the dependants who can join care workers in the UK.
There was also an increase to the general salary threshold under the skilled worker route (which increased from £26,200 to £38,700 in April) and the abolition of the 20 per cent threshold discount in so-called “shortage occupations”.
Home Office statistics released on Thursday revealed a 17.1 per cent (or 25,200) fall in applications for visas to study in the UK in August compared with the same month last year. This will help bring down net migration figures but is likely to have a knock-on effect on the education sector.
In 2022-23, UK universities derived a fifth of their income from the fees they charged to international students from outside the EU – equivalent to £10.9 billion. “For some less-selective providers which rely heavily on international student fees and are facing greater competition for domestic students from more-selective competitors, the next academic year could be a difficult one,” says Kate Ogden, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Europe is similarly struggling with such trade-offs as it seeks to exert more control over its borders. The EU’s new migration pact will kick in the year after next. It is likely to include a mass surveillance system at borders to track asylum seekers, new methods to hasten deportations, and the redistribution of asylum seekers to all EU members through “mandatory solidarity”.
Following the deaths of 12 migrants who were trying to cross the Channel early this month, France’s interior minister Gérald Darmanin called for a migration treaty between the EU and the UK. Even if the UK doesn’t join such a pact in the near future, it may have to adopt similar measures unilaterally.
“For a lot of people, their anxiety about immigration is not that they can’t see certain benefits from it, it’s if they think it’s not controlled,” Blair said in his BBC interview. “You have a thousand ways for people to come into the country and if you don’t have a clear idea of who has a right to be here and who hasn’t then at any one time you can have three-quarters of a million to a million people here without proper permission… If you don’t have rules, you get prejudices.”