Victory for leave came despite fact that those who experienced highest levels of migration were least anxious about it

David Cameron’s failure to give a convincing response to the publication of near-record net migration figures in the first week of the EU referendum campaign has proved to be its decisive moment.

The figure of 333,000 not only underlined beyond any doubt that Britain had become a country of mass migration but also meant politicians who claimed they could make deep cuts in the numbers while Britain remained in the European Union were simply not believed.

Yet the details of the referendum demonstrate a paradox – that those who have experienced the highest levels of migration are the least anxious about it. The highest levels of remain voters were in areas of highest net migration, while some of the strongest leave areas have had the fewest recent new immigrants.

EU voting map lays bare depth of division across Britain Read more

London, which absorbed 133,000 of the 330,000 net arrivals in 2015, voted the most strongly for remain. Manchester also voted for remain – and at 13,554 had nearly double the level of net migration seen in Birmingham, which voted leave.

The pattern is starkest at the local authority level. Lambeth in London, which recorded the highest remain vote of 78%, saw a net influx of 4,598, while Castle Point in Essex, which includes Canvey Island, saw a net inflow of only 81 new international migrants in 2015, but 72% of people there voted leave.

In Conservative Wandsworth in London, net migration was 6,295 and 75% of voters backed remain, while in Labour Hartlepool there was a net inflow of 113 and 69% of people voted to leave.

There are some variations to this pattern. Several East Anglian areas including Boston and Fenland, which did see net migration of more than 1,000 in 2015, were in the top 10 local authorities for leave in Thursday’s vote. These are areas that have had the most recent rapid population change after decades of very little immigration.

But overall the pattern holds true that the highest remain votes tended to be in the areas of highest net migration while the leave vote rose in areas where immigration was lowest.

Bobby Duffy, of Ipsos Mori, whose surveys found that two weeks into the campaign immigration had replaced the economy as the single most important factor driving the leave vote, said polling showed that “the actual direct impact on people’s local areas and lives is much less widespread than the general concern.

“That doesn’t mean the concerns aren’t real – we can be legitimately worried about how immigration is changing our country and putting pressure on other parts of society and services like the NHS. But it is still remarkable that the single most important factor driving the leave vote actually only has a direct negative impact on one in five of the population.”

When that “general concern” was confirmed by the national net migration figure of 333,000, regardless of the impact of new migrants on their own lives it gave leave campaigners lift-off.

Nigel Farage has said he cheered when Michael Gove and Boris Johnson then adopted Ukip’s policy of promising an Australian-style points system, because it gave the entire leave campaign momentum.



The problem for Cameron was that his only answer was to repeat that he had secured his EU deal to deny new migrants any benefits for four years. It didn’t work because he found himself immediately challenged over when he was going to meet his six year-old target to get net migration down to the “tens of thousands”. His home secretary, Theresa May, did little to help him out of the hole, making only one speech in which she barely mentioned immigration.

As Brendan Cox, the husband of murdered MP Jo Cox, put it when he argued that the immigration debate was too important to leave to the populist right and their obsession over numbers: “The UK government policy is a masterclass in how to get the crisis wrong; set an unrealistic target, miss it, report on it quarterly and in doing so show a complete lack of control heightening concern and fanning the flames of resentment.”

There was little attempt by any politicians – except maybe Sadiq Khan and the TUC’s Frances O’Grady – to make the case for the positive benefits of mass migration for the UK.

Gove and Johnson were very careful in the campaign not to attack migration or migrants and instead focus on the single issue of controlling migration. It went largely unnoticed in the campaign but neither actually promised to cut immigration.

Instead they talked only about an Australian-style immigration system and made a commitment to EU citizens living in the UK that their rights would be protected.

The small print says that those lawfully resident in the UK now will automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK with no less favourable treatment than before.

Brexiters have also tried to reassure Irish citizens that their rights to live and work in Britain will not change and the common travel area will not be affected. These do not amount to guarantees, however.

Cameron in his resignation statement went out of his way to stress that there would be no immediate change in the status of the 3 million EU citizens living in Britain.

Gove and Johnson have also made clear that the new immigration system, which will impose a visa system on EU citizens, will not come into effect until after the next general election, on the assumption that it will take place in 2020.

But it is as yet difficult to see what might happen should there be a surge in EU migration to Britain in the meantime – a concern already privately raised by ministers. The only sure way to cut immigration levels is to crash the economy, but we don’t know yet whether Project Fear will turn into Project Fact.