Why are so many people moving to the UK?

For years, Britain’s ruling Conservative Party has pledged to limit immigration, and a vow to “take back control” of borders and migration was a key part of the Brexit campaign to leave the European Union.

Instead, immigration boomed in 2022, according to national statistics released Thursday — news somewhat embarrassing to party leaders, whose largely pro-Brexit voters had expected it to fall.

The new figures show that last year net migration to Britain – people moving in minus those leaving – reached a record 606,000. That is a 24 percent increase from 2021, and roughly double the net migration in the years just before and after the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Migration is driven by a complex mix of domestic and global factors such as war, employment and politics. So what do the numbers say about what’s happening in Britain?

Violence and oppression help fuel migration.

From 2004 to 2017, around 600,000 people moved to Britain each year. In 2022, that number rose to 1.163 million, a record high and one that is unlikely to be matched any time soon.

Last year saw big increases in the number of people fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine (more than 120,000 Ukrainians have moved to Britain since the war started in February 2022), the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and the increasing crackdown on civil rights in Hong Kong. Britain has humanitarian visa programs specifically for those groups.

But those flows are already showing signs of abating. And part of last year’s increase may have been a move that happened earlier but was slowed by the coronavirus pandemic, as migration slowed.

Until a few years ago, migration from the European Union accounted for the bulk of the influx of people into Britain. But after Brexit took away the automatic right of EU citizens to settle in Britain, numbers plummeted, accounting for less than 8 percent of the total last year.

Emigration from Britain has increased in recent years, largely due to EU citizens returning home.

Education and the economy also play a major role.

While the current Conservative government has long opposed the high rate of migration, Britain has done so major labor shortagesparticularly in healthcare, social services and agriculture, partly due to Brexit.

The unemployment rate is below 4%, much lower than before the pandemic, and many jobs remain unfilled, so whatever the government’s position, Britain remains attractive to migrants looking for work. Many employers want the government to grant more work visas.

The government also points to education as a driver of immigration. Overseas graduate students living in Britain have increasingly benefited from a facility that allows them to obtain visas for dependent family members.

Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, recently said such visas had risen 750 percent since 2019, to 136,000 last year. Most were for people from Nigeria and India.

The government said it would make it harder to get dependent visas, but migration experts have said the change would have limited effect, and universities are arguing against discouraging foreign students, which they say will benefit the economy.

Arrivals in the English Channel are a small part of the migration.

The political rhetoric on migration in Britain in recent years has largely focused on the highly visible arrival of people – mainly refugees seeking asylum – in small boats across the English Channel.

But the new migration data was a timely reminder that undocumented migrants making the perilous crossing of the Channel make up only a small proportion of newcomers, while most enter legally.

In 2022, only 45,755 people were reported crossing the Channel in small boats government statistics published this year. That amounts to 3.8 percent of the total number of people moving to Britain.

But even in its response to the new migration statistics released Thursday, the Interior Ministry focused on limiting boat arrivals, in addition to slowing overall immigration.

“We remain committed to reducing overall net migration while holding back boats and controlling our borders, prioritizing addressing abuses and preventing dangerous and illegal crossings,” the agency said in a statement.