Britain's now the migrant magnet of Europe: 600,000 come here in one year... twice as many as go to France
- The highest total of migrants recorded came to live in Britain in 2010
- Britain has now overtaken Spain and Germany as top target for immigrants
- New wave expected from Romania and Bulgaria in 2014
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Britain has become the biggest magnet for migrants in Europe, EU officials revealed yesterday.
The highest total recorded – 590,950 – came to live here in 2010, their figures showed. This intake was more than twice the 251,159 migrants who opted to go to France.
It means that this country has overtaken Spain and Germany, where levels fell sharply, as the top target for immigrants seeking jobs and a new home.
The rise in numbers coming here marks a historic immigration landmark and comes as a new wave of incomers from Romania and Bulgaria is expected in 2014.
Immigration: The highest total of migrants recorded - 590,950 - came to live in Britain in 2010, figures have revealed
Whitehall has declined to publish its estimates of how many will come then.
For decades, Germany has had higher immigration levels than Britain while Spain’s rates shot ahead ten years ago as its boom drew millions from Spanish-speaking Latin America.
French immigration dropped below British levels in the 1990s.
But the latest analysis by Eurostat, the EU statistics arm, indicated that economic collapse in Spain and tighter controls in Germany have made Britain the main destination for migrants from Europe and elsewhere.
The comparisons cover 2010 but the UK is likely to have retained top place in the immigration table.
Latest figures show there were 536,000 long-term immigrants to Britain in the year to April 2012.
Whitehall has declined to publish its estimates of how many migrants will come from Romania and Bulgaria in 2014
Its limited success in this may be further highlighted next year when EU legislation allows Romanians and Bulgarians the unfettered right to live and work in Britain.
German cities facing less pressure from immigration than their British counterparts have already complained of the impact of migrants from the two Eastern European countries. Yesterday, the Mail reported that they have warned Chancellor Angela Merkel about ‘significant costs of poverty migration’ and a risk to ‘social peace’.
Think-tank Migrationwatch warned that restricting the impact of immigration here is going to be a major headache for ministers.
Its chairman, Sir Andrew Green, said: ‘These figures are yet another indicator showing that Labour lost control of immigration. Our mass immigration far exceeds that of all the other major countries in Europe.
‘The Government is making huge efforts to get the numbers under control but it is not going to be easy given that Britain has become the destination of choice in Europe.’
Immigration into Britain was running at just over 300,000 a year until rising under Labour in 1997.
Numbers passed 400,000 in 2003 and 500,000 in 2004 when the borders were opened to workers from Poland and eight other EU countries.
Germany, Spain and almost all other EU countries put curbs on Eastern European workers.
UK officials predicted that only 13,000 Poles would arrive but, in fact, more than a million did so and Polish is now this country’s second most common language.
German cities have already been warning Chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured) of the impact of migrants from Bulgaria and Romania
After coming to power in 2010, the Coalition promised to cut net immigration to below 100,000 a year.
But ministers have struggled to reduce this statistic, which measures how migration increases the population after immigration and emigration have been counted.
‘The Government is making huge efforts
to get the numbers under control but it is not going to be easy given
that Britain has become the destination of choice in Europe’
The figure fell from 252,000 in 2010 to 183,000 at the latest count.
- Sir Andrew Green, chairman of think-tank Migrationwatch
However, it is still well above net migration in Germany, whose population swelled by 151,600 in 2010.
That year, Spain’s net immigration was just 62,200 as 400,000 quit its collapsing economy.
Eurostat said immigration restrictions had been a success across much of the EU. Limits focused on attracting specific migrants to combat skills shortages, based on language proficiency, work experience, education and age.
It added: ‘Significant resources have been mobilised to fight people smuggling and trafficking.’
The figures reveal how the dramatic fall in migration to Spain and Germany began in 2009 as the recession began to bite. In Germany, it fell from 682,000 in 2008 to 404,000 in 2010. In Spain, it fell from a peak of 958,000 in 2007 to 465,000 in 2010.
The impact of immigration to Britain was underlined by the 2011 census, which showed the population was 63.2million, half a million more than expected.
There were four million immigrants in a decade, whose arrival helped push the population of England and Wales up by 3.7 million.
