The Office for National Statistics released new long-term international migration figures on Wednesday 21 May. Net migration for the year to December 2025 came in at 171,000 — down from 331,000 the year before and a record peak of 944,000 in 2023. Labour ministers were quick to take a victory lap. They shouldn't be.
Half of an Eye-Watering Number Is Still Too Many
Let's get some perspective. 171,000 net arrivals in a single year is still the equivalent of a new city the size of Reading or Dudley landing on these shores every twelve months. It is still higher than net migration was in any single year before 1998. And it is still vastly above the level the British public have ever voted for in any election, referendum or poll going back twenty years.
The official spin is that the fall has been "driven by policy". That's only half true. The drop reflects measures introduced under the last Conservative government — ending dependent visas for most overseas students, restricting care worker family routes, raising the skilled worker salary floor. Those policies were taken off the shelf precisely because Reform UK forced immigration to the centre of the political agenda. Labour are now riding a wave they fought tooth and nail to prevent.
Inflows of 813,000 Are Not a Success Story
Look beyond the net figure. Total immigration into the United Kingdom was 813,000 in the year to December 2025. Total emigration was 642,000. We are still letting in nearly a million people a year. Tens of thousands of them go straight into pressured public services, social housing waiting lists and a labour market where wages for ordinary British workers are barely keeping up with inflation.
The Home Office wants you to focus on the headline. The reality on the ground in Preston, in Blackpool, in Burnley and across Lancashire is that GP lists are full, primary schools are oversubscribed, and there is a permanent housing emergency. None of that gets better while inflows run at this level.
The Channel Hasn't Closed
None of these ONS figures touch the small boats problem at all. The Home Office's own transparency data showed 839 people crossed the Channel in a single week earlier this month — the highest weekly total since mid-March. The asylum backlog stretches into years. Hotel contracts are still costing taxpayers around £15 billion across the spending period. The new "temporary refugee status" rebrand changes nothing about the volumes.
Labour want you to believe one falling number erases all that. It doesn't.
What Reform UK Would Do
Reform UK's position is unchanged and unapologetic: we believe in net zero migration as the working target. That means matching emigration with immigration, and tightening the routes that drove the post-2021 surge in the first place. It means freezing dependants, raising salary thresholds further, ending the abuse of the graduate visa, and processing asylum claims in weeks not years with a credible removals pipeline.
It also means being honest with the public. A drop from 944,000 to 171,000 is welcome. A drop from 171,000 to zero is the job. Labour will not do it. The country knows it. That is why Reform won 1,400 council seats this month and why this government is in freefall.