Vote Leave

• Net migration is the difference between the number of people entering the country (and expected to stay long term) and the number leaving.
• Until 2010, the UK debate generally focused on the number of people arriving – and on the idea that immigration presented a problem.
• He promised to bring net migration – a metric usually only of interest to data nerds and researchers – down to the “tens of thousands”.
• But the reality was (and still is) that government only has limited control over who comes and goes.

A moving target

• The coalition years were dominated by this promise to hit the net migration target by the 2015 election.
• As the 2015 election neared, the magnitude of the failure to meet the target was becoming obvious.
• The party reiterated its promise to hit the net migration target, now referred to as an “ambition”, while Cameron campaigned to remain in the EU.
• And when Theresa May took over as prime minister, her administration continued to commit itself to the net migration target, including it in her election manifesto.

Caught in their own net

• He continued to suggest this would deliver lower numbers, but with attention elsewhere and net migration lower than before the referendum, nobody seemed keen for a return to Cameron’s “balancing the books”.
• Ultimately, the net migration target was hit by accident.
• But Johnson’s “have your cake and eat it” post-Brexit policymaking – which has continued under Rishi Sunak – planted the seeds for a new net migration panic.
• Now that the public has been introduced to the problematic concept of the “right amount” of net migration, the government may simply have to accept that it has been caught in its own net.