This week the government will reportedly announce restrictions on some types of foreign students bringing their family members into the country. This is intended as a pre-emptive move to take the sting out of Thursday’s release of official immigration figures, which are expected to show that last year some 700,000 more people came into the UK than left it.
This is an astronomical rise in net migration, after years of political promises to bring the influx down. The numbers have been swelled recently by Ukrainian refugees and Hongkongers fleeing the Chinese crackdown. But even when those are removed from the total, that still leaves around 500,000 immigrants a year. The problem long predates both those emergencies.
Suddenly, political leaders are scrambling to be seen
