Migration from EU to UK lowest for four years

The number of people moving to the UK from EU countries was the lowest it has been for nearly four years in 2017.
But there was a rise in those coming from outside the EU, the Office for National Statistics said, with net migration the highest since 2011. Overall net migration, the difference between the number of people coming to live in the UK for at least 12 months and those emigrating, was 282,000.

The government wants to cut overall net migration to the tens of thousands. The ONS data is for the first full calendar year since the Brexit vote. While the overall net migration was up by 33,000 on the previous year, statisticians said the figure was "broadly stable". The ONS said there had been an "unusual pattern" in the estimates of non-EU student immigration in 2016, suggesting the rise was, in fact, an "anomaly".

The ONS figures showed there were 101,000 net migrants from the EU last year and 227,000 from outside the EU. The net migration figure for those coming to the UK from outside the EU is 227,000. There was also a record number of EU citizens emigrating from the UK, with an estimated 139,000 leaving in 2017. The only other year when the EU emigration figures came close to that level was in 2008. when 134,000 EU nationals left the UK.