'Beyond the glossy headlines, Labour's optimism begins to unravel,' Matt Goodwin says

But when you look past the glossy headlines and you look at the actual numbers, I think that optimism begins to unravel. Just look at what we've discovered this week.

Asylum seekers now account for 44 per cent of all net migration into the country, and that share is expected to climb.

This week, the Office for National Statistics released provisional long-term migration figures for the year ending June 2025.

And yes, the overall story is that net migration has fallen from last year's extraordinary figure of 649,000 to about 204,000.

But let's be clear, 204,000 more people coming in and leaving every year is still an immense number, and a number that is far too high, in my opinion.

The reason it seems low is because last year's total was one of the highest in modern British history.

Now this drop just resets us to the post-Brexit baseline while we are still adding the equivalent of a city the size of Portsmouth to our population every single year. Just think about that.

The new data also shows that roughly three-quarters of all migrants who are now coming into Britain are coming in from outside Europe, from radically different nations with radically different cultures.

And this is reshaping the nature of the country and our population.

I think much of this inflow of people entering much of it is low skill, low wage, with low levels of education.

And of course, that's putting unbearable pressure on our housing services and, of course, our communities.

Large numbers of people, especially young, skilled, highly educated Britons, we've also discovered this week, are packing their bags. They're heading abroad.

It's been dubbed the brain drain. And that exodus explains a significant part of the dip in that headline net migration figure.

So let's be clear here. Let's be clear about what's going on. Immigration remains close to record highs.

And the only reason net migration is coming down is because many of those departures are soaring. And who can really blame them after Labour's Budget this week?

Why would Britain's brightest 20 and 30-somethings stay in this country when they're expected to bankroll an overstretched migration system and an increasingly fragile justice system through eye-watering taxes, all while their own living standards steadily erode?

It's a difficult question to ask, but it's a question we really need to think about. Asylum accommodation has ballooned by nearly a quarter since the Labour Party came to power.

We now have 108,000 asylum seekers living in hotels, bedsit and multi-occupancy housing, all of which is funded by you, the taxpayer.

Now the costs are absolutely staggering, and they're going to rise and rise and rise.

And enforcement, we also learned, is not faring any better. The number of small boat migrants who are actually removed is declining under the Labour Party.

Only 2,852 were deported, which is fewer than before Keir Starmer took office. In fact, get this, this is the bombshell number for me.

Since 2018, under both Tory and Labour Governments, our country has removed just 3.5 per cent of those people who entered Britain illegally, just 3.5 per cent. Isn't that a shocking number? A shocking indictment of the British state.

And of course, today we learned that French police are reportedly set to begin intercepting migrant boats in the Channel following months of disputes with the UK over the risks of such operations.

But is it really going to make a difference? I think this. The blunt reality remains.

Workers in Britain are being told to shoulder ever higher taxes to sustain a system that is now buckling under demand, while public services strain and long-promised reforms, particularly to welfare, remain out of reach.

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