Immigration figures prove the Government has no grip - MEP

Euro-MP Paul Nuttall

The latest immigration figures “tear a gaping hole in any pretence that this Government has the faintest idea of how to deal with runaway migration,” said MEP Paul Nuttall today.

"The rise of 21% in year on year net immigration figures gives a lie to all those silky promises made by Cameron at the time of the general election and the thousands of sound bites by Government ministers since then,” he said.

The figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that net migration to the UK rose from 198,000 to 239,000.

"What this means is that the population of an area like the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale has arrived in the UK in the last year alone.

"These headline net figures also disguise an even more concerning trend, and that is the transfer of population made clear by the gross figures which show that over half a million - more than the population of Sheffield - have arrived in the last year, while 336,000 have left.

“The social impact of this is even greater than the bald figures make clear,” said Mr Nuttall, UKIP Euro-MP for the North West.

“According to another set of figures released today by the ONS, more than half a million Poles are living in the UK, having arrived since the enlargement of the EU. That is just one Eastern European country!

"This government is afraid of dealing with the issue and it is frightened of talking seriously about the it,” said Mr Nuttall, the Party’s Deputy Leader.