Brexit promised to ‘take back control’. Now foreign nationals are arriving in their droves – The Telegraph

That comes on top of the 6.7 million applications by EU citizens already in the UK who have applied for settled status, of which 6.5 million have been concluded, according to Thursday's data.

It is not surprising that John Hayes, a former Home Office minister and the chairman of the Tory Common Sense group, believes the next prime minister - Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak - must prioritise clamping down on both legal and illegal migration before the next election.

I would like to see all of these figures drastically reduced. That is what my constituents expected when we voted to take back control. It isnt just about borders but migration was a critical element of that. By the next election, we must do so, he said.

So how did Mr Johnsons pledge to take back control result in the highest number of visas being issued since 2005, when modern records began, and potentially the largest number since the Second World War?

Unlike his predecessor Theresa May, the Prime Minister scrapped targets designed to keep net migration below 100,000 a year and instead adopted a significantly more liberalised approach to post-Brexit immigration.

While tough on illegal migration - as illustrated by plans to send Channel migrants on a one-way ticket to Rwanda - he has relaxed rules for foreign skilled migrants and students with sponsored jobs or university places in the UK.

The number of work visas has nearly doubled in a year, from 170,500 to 331,000 and is up 79 per cent on pre-pandemic levels. One factor is that migrant EU workers now require visas with the end of free movement, but they only account for 10 per cent of the total.

Instead, the rise has been largely fuelled by non-EU migrants seeking employment in the UK, led by India (up from 45,600 to 111,000 in a year), Philippines (doubling to 21,900) and Nigeria (doubling to 17,500).

The implementation of a points-based immigration system has opened up half of all jobs in the UK to foreign workers, by lowering salary and skill thresholds for migrants. Previously, employers also had to prove a British worker could not be recruited to fill a vacancy before looking abroad.

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Brexit promised to 'take back control'. Now foreign nationals are arriving in their droves - The Telegraph