Labour's quiet immigration 'success': how much of it is actually Labour's?

Lionel Barber, writing in the i, reckons Labour has one striking achievement it never shouts about: it has got immigration under control. Net migration is down more than 80% from its 2023 peak and could fall below 100,000 by the end of the year, small boat arrivals are well down, and yet most Reform voters seem convinced things are getting worse. His advice to Andy Burnham is to stop fretting about his left flank and start bragging.

The irony is that the Tories spent fourteen years promising 'tens of thousands', only to finally pull the right levers just in time for Labour to collect the dividend.

Boats, weather and wars

Small boats are a slightly different story. Arrivals in the first half of 2026 were down around 40% on the same period last year, and the government would like you to credit the French beach patrol deal and its crackdown on boat parts. But the National Crime Agency's own assessment points to a fall in demand from migrants and supply chains disrupted by the war in the Middle East, alongside the enforcement effort. In other words, a fair chunk of this is down to things happening thousands of miles from Dover, plus the weather.

That matters, because if the fall is partly circumstantial it can reverse just as quickly, and a government that has spent a year boasting will then own the rebound.

Why nobody believes it

Barber is right about the perception gap, though. Polling suggests around half the public think net migration has gone up, when it has more than halved. I don't think that's simply because people are thick or the media is biased (although Channel dinghies make better telly than visa statistics). If the only political conversation about migration for a decade is about how terrible it is and how it must come down, people will naturally assume it's still a problem. Reform has every incentive to keep that assumption alive.

Final thoughts

Labour can claim some credit, but mostly for not reversing someone else's policy and benefiting from global events. That's not nothing, but it's hardly a heroic achievement.

There's also a question nobody seems keen to ask: is net migration below 100,000 actually a good thing? Universities are already squealing about lost overseas fee income, and the care sector relies heavily on overseas workers. Low migration has costs too, they're just quieter and slower to show up than a dinghy on a beach. My guess is that in a couple of years we'll be having a very different conversation about labour shortages, and the people bragging now will be the ones looking awkward.