Numbers are lower than before EU8 countries such as Poland and Lithuania joined bloc

Net migration from the EU into the UK is at its lowest level since before the bloc was enlarged to take in countries including Poland and Lithuania, figures suggest.

The difference between EU nationals arriving and leaving in the year ending June 2019 was 48,000, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show, the lowest level since 2003, when it was 15,000 and before the so-called EU8 countries joining the union: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

EU net migration climbed to a peak of 219,000 in the year to March 2015 and has been falling ever since against the backdrop of the referendum and the Brexit negotiations.

The fall is driven by a decline in EU immigration, down from a 305,000 peak in March 2015 to 199,000 in the year to June, while EU emigration is up to 151,000 from a trough of 75,000 in the year to March 2013.

The lower value of the pound making the UK less attractive, improving economic prospects in EU countries of origin, and the political uncertainty of the prolonged Brexit process are all factors that have influenced the decline in net EU migration.

However, an estimated 229,000 more non-EU citizens moved to the UK than left in the year ending June 2019 – this has gradually increased since 2013 largely because of a rise in non-EU immigration, while emigration has remained broadly stable.

The distinction is important because the government’s immigration policy is focused on ending freedom of movement with the EU with a broader argument that the country has no control of this side of migration. But the element over which it does have control – immigration outside the EU – continues to rise. EU net migration has declined without restricting freedom of movement.

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Experts have said the relatively low levels of EU net migration mean that restricting free movement at this point in time would be expected to have a much smaller impact on overall migration levels than it would have done in the past. However, this will not always be the case as EU migration has fluctuated up and down over time.

Madeleine Sumption, the director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said: “What will happen to migration in the coming years is highly uncertain, regardless of which party is power. It’s easy to imagine that migration policies are the only things that affect migration, but in reality, policies act more like a filter than a tap.

“The state of the economy, demand for workers by UK employers, conditions in countries of origin can have a big impact on migration, in some cases even more than changes in policy. That’s one reason why we’ve seen such a big drop in EU migration since 2016, despite the fact that policy has not yet changed at all.”

Overall net migration, combining both figures for EU and non-EU, was about 212,000 in the period, the data shows.

The figures are classed as experimental estimates after the ONS admitted earlier this year it had been underestimating some EU net migration data since 2016.