was interrupted for a "breaking news" announcement as was dealt a huge blow. Beverley Turner ventured into the GBN Newsroom to examine the latest immigration figures with Mark White. Net migration to the UK is estimated to have halved from 860,000 in the year ending December 2023 to 431,000 in the year ending December 2024, marking the largest numerical fall on record.
The most recent estimates, published by the ONS in November, put net migration for the year to June 2024 at a provisional total of 728,000, down from a record 906,000 in the previous 12 months. While this appears like a victory for Keir Starmer, this is not the case. Speaking to White, Turner said: "This is going to be touted as a massive victory for Labour. Is that accurate?"
"That would be wrong if they did that because these are changes effectively brought in under the previous Conservative government that have seen this reduction in net migration," the GB News editor said.
Looking into the latest figures, he explained: "Net migration, we're told, is almost down by 50 per cent." Turner noted that the 860,000 had been rounded up from 720,000.
White continued: "So actually, more than 130,000 is that rounding up area if we want to describe it as that. That probably tells you that that 431,000 isn't quite going to be that. It's probably going to be over 500,000 at least, by the time they've done the rounding up."
Former Home Secretary said: "This drop is because of the visa rule changes that I put in place.
"Labour will try to claim credit for these figures but they criticised me at the time, and have failed to fully implement the changes."
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: "This huge drop in net migration - dropping by 430,000, or halving - is a big step in the right direction.
"This is thanks to measures put in place by the last Conservative Government.
"But the numbers are still far too high and need to go down a lot further. That is why we need a binding annual immigration cap, set by Parliament - at much, much lower levels.
"But when we tabled that plan, Labour voted against it last week and voted against it again yesterday. Only the have a serious plan to slash migration a lot further, which the country now needs."
