UK’s ‘Unprecedented Migration’ Defies Tory Promises: Will Push Population to 74 Million by 2036

Queues of newly-arrived airline passengers line up to await their turn at the UK Border Ag
Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty
Simon Kent

The UK population will soar by 10 percent come 2036 to nearly 74 million, official projections revealed on Tuesday, with higher levels of net migration driving the numbers skyward.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed the steep rise is almost entirely down to net migration — which is due to account for 6.1 million of the projected population growth — and would be followed by a further leap of nearly three million over the following decade.

The statistics agency released population projections that are for the first time based on the 2021 census, the Financial Times reports.

All the figures are projections, not predictions, because they are based on current and past trends.

The actual levels of future migration and population may be higher or lower, and will be “affected by policy changes as well as the impact of as yet unknown migrant behaviour patterns”, the ONS said.

It also revised its assumption on the long-term level of net international migration, which it projects to be steady at 315,000 from 2028 onwards, and for the natural growth of the population.

The ONS said the UK population was now set to increase by 6.6 million people over the 15 years between mid 2021 and mid 2036, a rise of 9.9 percent, from an estimated 67 million to 73.7 million.

This increase included 541,000 more births than deaths and net international migration of 6.1 million, numbers within a rise that all defy UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s previous pledges to tackle the issue of mass immigration.

Royal National Lifeboat Institution's (RNLI) members of staff help migrants to disembark from one of their lifeboat after they were picked up at sea while attempting to cross the English Channel, on the beach of Dungeness, on the southeast coast of England, on June 15, 2022. - Furious Conservatives called on Britain's government on June 15, 2022 to abandon a European human rights pact after a judge dramatically blocked its plan to fly asylum-seekers to Rwanda. Under the UK's agreement with Rwanda, all migrants arriving illegally in Britain are liable to be sent to the East African nation thousands of miles away for processing and settlement. The government, after arguing that Brexit would lead to tighter borders, says the plan is needed to deter record numbers of migrants from making the perilous Channel crossing from northern France. (Photo by Ben Stansall / AFP) (Photo by BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images)

File/Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s (RNLI) members of staff help migrants disembark from one of their lifeboat after they were picked up at sea while crossing the English Channel on the southeast coast of England, on June 15, 2022. (BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images)

In comments provided to Breitbart London, Migration Watch UK chairman Alp Mehmet said: “This population increase is equivalent to five cities the size of Birmingham, over 90 per cent due to immigration in just 15 years. We also know that the net migration figure the ONS projections are based on have already been surpassed.

“The government must now take strong action to get the numbers down before it is too late.”

Last year Sunak said: “On the topic of legal migration let me be crystal clear: I think the numbers are too high and I’m committed to bringing them down… we’re considering a range of options to bring numbers down and we’ll have more to say on that shortly.”

Nigel Farage responded bluntly that “I don’t believe a word of it. The Great Immigration Lie continues, this time perpetrated by Rishi Sunak.”

The Conservative manifesto in 2019 pledged “numbers will come down.”

Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com

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