Review · 2026-05-22

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/review arrow_upward Menu IMPARTIAL NEWS + INTELLIGENT DEBATE Wang Chun News Politics Opinion Culture Money Sport Live Well Perspectives Puzzles Newsletters Search bookmark mail alternate_email OPINION The immigration myth Farage is desperate for you to believe The right has relied on public ignorance in order to stoke anxiety around immigration May 21, 2026 4:15 pm (Updated 5:07 pm) 3 min read LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 16: Protesters pass a van showing the message 'Immigration Makes Britain Brilliant' as they march across London to Parliament Square during the rally on May 16, 2026 in London, England. The far-right "Unite the Kingdom" rally, organised by Tommy Robinson draws an expected crowd of 50,000. Under strict Public Order Act conditions, demonstrators are legally confined to a specific south-bound corridor from Kingsway to Parliament Square between late morning and early evening. To prevent clashes with a concurrent 30,000-strong counter-protest, the Metropolitan Police has launched an unprecedented ??4.5 million security operation deploying over 4,000 officers. The operation is using live facial recognition, armored vehicles, and stringent hate speech monitoring, while the Home Office has barred multiple international far-right speakers from entering the UK. (Photo by Martin Pope/Getty Images) We must pretend that immigrants damage our economy rather than improve it (Photo: Martin Pope/Getty) Avatar for Ian Dunt Ian Dunt The i Paper columnist Share bookmark Save Gift this article free There is no greater area of failure in public perception than immigration. Not one. Look at the facts. The latest official data shows one of the sharpest drops in net migration since records began, at just 171,000 in the year to December 2025. That’s half of the previous year and a fall of three quarters on the year before that. The number of people claiming asylum is down by 12 per cent and the number of asylum seekers living in hotels is down by a third. What do the public believe? British Future’s Immigration Attitudes Tracker, released today, found just 16 per cent of people think migration fell in the past year, while 49 per cent of people believe it increased and 51 per cent expect it to increase next year as well. They are utterly detached from the reality of the issue. The public are not just wrong about trends, they are also mistaken about the basic facts. They estimate that 33 per cent of immigrants are asylum seekers. The real figure is 9 per cent. They believe students make up 24 per cent of UK immigration. The real figure is 52 per cent. This is a failure of public perception at an almost biblical level. In one of the most significant policy areas in British political life, we have a debate which has come unmoored from empirical reality. That is partly the fault of the right-wing press, who have stoked fear, resentment and anxiety as if it were their hobby. But even the BBC, which regularly pumps out bulletins on small boat arrivals and criminal asylum seekers, is making the issue seem disproportionately worse. If all journalists were doing their job properly, it would simply not be possible for the public to be labouring under this degree of ignorance when it comes to immigration. The Labour Party also deserves a large share of the blame. It has demonstrated a complete absence of political leadership. The main reason for the fall in numbers are because of policy changes made by the previous Tory government. They restricted overseas students from bringing family members, care workers from bringing dependants, and raised the general salary threshold on skilled visas, among other measures. All Labour had to do was take credit for the work done by previous administrations. It’s the oldest trick in the book. How hard can it possibly be? Governments have been doing it since time immemorial. Instead, like a man firing a gun into his own foot, calmly reloading it and pulling the trigger again, Labour decided to, when it took office, actively stoke the impression of immigration being out of control. It took the issue where voters trust it least and decided to endlessly emphasise it. Then it proposed a series of solutions which would alienate its supporters and do nothing to attract its critics. But the real culprit behind all this is of course Reform UK. The press and Labour have been negligent and irresponsible. Reform has been cynical and reprehensible. It has relied on public ignorance in order to stoke anxiety around immigration. It has worked tirelessly to prevent a rational or compassionate conversation about this subject, preferring instead to create a climate of hysteria and mob rule. For decades, Nigel Farage has used immigration to pursue his political aims. He spent years insisting that European free movement was destroying this country and that’s why we needed to leave the EU. People listened to his nonsense and now look where we are. Outside the EU, poorer, more chaotic, adrift, lost. Now he uses small boats to convince people to make him prime minister, wishing the cycle to begin again. And what then? Something much, much worse. A country digging its own grave and eagerly pouring the soil over its head. It is not just that we are misled about the numbers. We are misled about the economic impact of the numbers. If this trajectory continues, we will have a net migration level below 100,000 by the end of 2026 – a level not seen since the 1990s and a disaster for the country. But, of course, this cannot be said. We must pretend that immigrants damage our economy rather than improve it, that a country which attracts no one is somehow a success story, that the vibrancy that typifies modern Britain is a weakness rather than a strength. We must turn our backs on the future and dwell only on an imagined homogenous past, or else risk being branded an elitist. These figures are not a symbol of success. They are a testament to our national decline. The ignorance which surrounds them is a result of a craven political culture which does not have the integrity, the vision or the journalistic standards to stand up to Reform. Until we do, we will keep on labouring in ignorance – impoverishing ourselves and calling it a triumph. 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