Britain’s foreign-born population stood at 13.1 million, or at least 19 per cent of the population, in figures dated 2024. This represents a 55 per cent rise since 2015, the The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in its International Migration Outlook, published on Thursday, 12 November.
Every year of that rise came under Conservative rule. The OECD’s comparison runs from 2015 to 2024, when David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak were in Downing Street, and over that period Britain’s foreign-born population grew by about 4.65 million, from about 8.45 million to 13.1 million. Over the same Tory decade, foreign-born workers accounted for 79.4 per cent of all employment growth, and permanent migration peaked at 741,600 in 2023, the year before the Conservatives left office.
Robert Jenrick told the Telegraph that successive Conservative prime ministers were to blame.
“The failure of successive Conservative prime ministers to control immigration will forever change our country,” he said. “They should never be forgiven. Nobody voted for such rapid demographic change.”
Permanent migration to the United Kingdom fell 32 per cent in 2025 compared with 2024, to 295,800, after a peak of 741,600 in 2023. A Home Office spokesman said net migration is “down by 82pc since its peak in 2023.”
This website has reported Office for National Statistics projections that Britain’s future population growth would depend entirely on immigration, as births fall below deaths.
