Keir Starmer holds urgent No10 press conference and unveils major immigration update

Prime Minister Keir Starmer called an urgent press conference at No10 to blast the Tories – after a tranche of data and stats was published on migration on Thursday

Keir Starmer today to accused the Tories of running an “experiment in open borders” in the wake of a flurry of immigration figures.

At a hastily arranged press conference in No10, the PM said the previous government’s failure was of a “different order” and happened “by design not accident”.

“Time and again the Conservative Party promised they would get the numbers down. Time and again they failed, and now the chorus of excuses has begun,” he said.

He added: “A failure on this scale isn’t just bad luck, it isn’t a global trend or taking your eye off the ball, no this is a different order of failure. This happened by design not accident.

“Policies were reformed deliberately to liberalise immigration, Brexit was used for that purpose to turn Britain into a one nation experiment in open borders.” His remarks came as revised estimates revealed net migration to the UK hit a record 906,000 in 2023.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures indicated the measure for the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving the country reached the higher than previously thought peak in the 12 months to June last year, after being revised up 166,000 from the initial estimate of 740,000.

The estimates, covering the previous Conservative government’s administration prior to the general election, have since dropped by 20% and stood at 728,000 in the latest period for the year to June 2024. A similar change has been made to the provisional figure for net migration in the year to December 2023, which was initially estimated to be 685,000 and is now thought to be 866,000 – an increase of 181,000.

Meanwhile, the cost of the UK’s asylum system has risen to £5billion, the highest level of spending on record and up by more than a third in a year, according to separate Home Office data published at the same time. The figures come as new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch admitted her party had failed on migration.

Downing Street said the statistics “show that the Government inherited a situation from the previous government where they had effectively run Britain as an experiment in open borders” and this happened “due to the policies and decisions taken by the last government”.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman would not be drawn into saying whether Labour’s approach would be tougher than the Tories, but added that the Government had been “elected on a mandate to change the country and put the people’s priorities at the heart of delivery, and that means bringing down these record high levels of legal migration and tackling the root causes behind it”.

Earlier on Thursday, migration minister Seema Malhotra declined to say what level of net migration would be acceptable when repeatedly asked for a number. Instead, she told BBC Breakfast that policy must be based on “a credible and serious plan” and the Government should not “just pull figures out of the air”.

Former home secretaries James Cleverly and Suella Braverman, who have both courted hopes of becoming Tory leader in the past, claimed credit for the drop in numbers while they led the Home Office. But shadow home secretary Chris Philp said net migration “remains far too high” and the UK needs stricter border controls.

In a speech on Wednesday, Ms Badenoch said there had been a “collective failure of political leaders from all parties over decades” to grasp migration, adding: “On behalf of the Conservative Party, it is right that I as the new leader accept responsibility, and say truthfully we got this wrong. I more than understand the public anger on this issue. I share it.”