A revealing approach to the latest population and immigration figures?

Anyone remember "Down to the tens of thousands"?

Montage © Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2025

Three classic 'at-a-glance' Facts4EU charts

On Friday the Office for National Statistics released its latest population figures – for mid-2024. There have been numerous articles in the media about these but today Facts4EU.Org takes a typically different approach to all these other articles. Readers may find the charts we have produced below to be very interesting.

These days population data cannot be produced without also talking about immigration, as the ONS have been clear for some years that the main determinant of the increase in population is net immigration – the numbers coming in minus the numbers going out. We therefore conclude with a chart about this, which is a rarity as it looks at total immigration excluding returning British subjects and ignores all those emigrating.

1. The long view of population

To give some perspective, we start with the long view of the population of the United Kingdom. The chart below shows the last 50 years, starting just before the first UK-EEC (Common Market) referendum in 1975.

The chart’s baseline is set at 50 million, to make the increases more obvious.

For the first 10 years the population stayed broadly the same.

1974 : 56,235,600
1984 : 56,409,300

In the next 20 years there was little movement.

1984 : 56,409,300
2004 : 59,950,400 (+3.5m, or 6.2% in 20 years)

In 2004 when 10 new countries joined the EU, Tony Blair famously estimated immigration of around 13,000. In reality hundreds of thousands started coming. Three years later when Romania and Bulgaria joined, a large number came from each country – particularly Romania. In those 10 years, the population increased at more than double the rate for the previous 20 years.

2004 : 59,950,400
2014 : 64,618,700 (4.7m, or 7.8% in 10 years)

2. The most recent 10 years for which population data is available

A lot has been written recently about population in the last 10 years and this is where things get interesting. We start with the population increase, before moving on to the so-called ‘Boris wave”.

As can be seen below, population increased at a rate (7.2%) slightly lower than that in the previous 10 years (7.8%).

At this point it is important to stress that a rate of over 7% in 10 years is dramatic for any country. For one as crowded as large parts of the United Kingdom this is even more stark. Accommodating between 4-5 million extra people puts enormous strain on a country’s resources. It assumes that housebuilding and the provision of all the services people need can keep pace, from schools and hospitals to every aspect of life, such as supermarkets, car parking, and phone and utility services.

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3. Actual immigration of foreign nationals, ignoring emigration

The vast majority of charts which readers see concern net immigration – the numbers coming in minus the numbers leaving. These also include British nationals returning from living abroad. Below we take a different approach. This chart shows the number of foreign nationals immigrating into the UK, regardless of how many leave and ignoring the effect of British nationals in either direction.

Observations

Maybe we should call it 'popugration....

Population and immigration once used to be different things. Population once had quite a lot to do with birth rates and death rates. No longer. The difference between those two metrics has long ceased to be of any relevance when looking at the overall numbers. For many years now, immigration has been the decisive factor when looking at the population of the United Kingdom.

It's strange to think that it's not that long ago when politicians such as David Cameron (in particular) used to talk with a straight face about getting immigration "down to the tens of thousands". Who could possibly take that seriously now? For years we all became jaded and cynical, then troubled and anxious, and now we are looking at this subject in terms of it being a crisis.

Indeed, considering the cost of the "Indefinite Leave to Remain" (ILR), the numbers involved are truly scary. It is Reform UK that last week drew the public's attention to this and now it seems all the parties are talking about it.

At its peak at the end of 2023, total foreign immigration hit over 1.25 million entering the UK legally. This is directly attributable to the changes to the immigration rules made by the Johnson government at the start of 2021. For many years it had been disastrously high, at between 6-800,000 per annum. The new ‘points-based system’ introduced in January 2021 opened the floodgates to people from around the world, including their dependants, making it far worse.

Rishi Sunak eventually tackled part of this and the numbers were already falling dramatically when he went to the public much earlier than anyone expected and lost in spectacular fashion to Sir Keir Starmer. Yet now we have commentators asking whether Starmer will even last to the end of the Labour Conference as Leader of his Party. Perhaps that's an exaggeration, but we were certainly living in the most tumultuous political landscape of almost everyone's living memory.

It would be a shame if we were not around to throw some factual light on whatever is coming down the tracks...

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[ Sources: Office for National Statistics, Sept 2025 ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Mon 29 Sept 2025

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Reader Comments 4

1. Mr Sceptic , Monday, September 29, 2025, 07:07:

For the Brexiteers in the Tory Party, Brexit became a victory for the UK’s relationship with the Commonwealth, and a signal to deepen ties with countries like India, Pakistan, and Nigeria.
Loosening visa rules and expanding opportunities for migration from Commonwealth nations became cornerstones of Priti Patel and Suella Braverman’s tenures.

2. NH , Monday, September 29, 2025, 10:15:

As Facts4EU has stated above it's Reform that is now setting the agenda and Labour are following with similar policies whilst calling Reform "Racists" and "Fascists". In practice their policies for qualification for "Indefinite Leave to Remain" will have the same effect as Reform's policy by removing any incentive for undesirables to stay.
.
The main difference is Reform's policies will also apply to undesirables who have already been granted ILR. Reform have correctly pointed out present policies will mean 3.8 million will soon qualify for ILR which means they will have a legal right to bring dependants to the UK which would be an economic disaster. Labour seem to have realised they are correct so they are copying their policy. The other main difference is Reform will actually implement the policy and Labour will probably not.

3. Sparky , Monday, September 29, 2025, 10:50:

2 NH. Labour have called the Reform policies racist not Reform, and the policies are. As Mr S has stated above most legal migrants are coming from India, Nigeria and Pakistan. If you’ve visited a hospital of care home recently you’ll see what employment is attracting them to the UK. Our Govt should have been training more doctors etc via Universities years ago.

4. NH , Monday, September 29, 2025, 11:30:

3. Sp.
If you call Reform polices "racist" then it's clearly implied that the people setting these policies are "racist". Labour are now proposing ILR will be granted only after 10 years and the qualifying criteria will include fluent in English, in work, national insurance payments, no benefit claims and no criminal record. Are you claiming NHS Doctors and Nurses will not meet these requirements ?
.
As I have clearly stated above the Reform policies are about removing "undesirables" and removing incentives for people who do not make a nett contribution to the UK. Are you claiming the 3.8 million (mentioned above) and their unlimited number of dependents are all going to be working in the NHS ?
.
As there are presently only1.37 million full time staff in the NHS this is going to be a huge expansion. I agree UK Governments should have been encouraging more home grown Doctors and Nurses but the established political parties in the UK have failed to do this. Maybe a new party in Government will do this !

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