Rishi Sunak faces Tory backlash over record immigration figures

Numbers swollen by humanitarian arrivals from Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong

The EU will start charging Britons to visit from 2023 (Getty Images)

Rishi Sunak faces backlash from Conservative MPs after new figures showed net migration to the UK soaring to a record high, with 504,000 more people arriving in the country than departing over the past year.

“Unprecedented” global events including the lifting of Covid lockdowns, war in Ukraine and the Chinese security clampdown in Hong Kong sent immigration figures soaring.

At 1.1 million, the total number of arrivals in the 12 months to June was the highest since statistics were first gathered in 1964 and far outweighed the 560,000 departures, despite the fact that for the first time since 1991 more EU nationals left the UK than arrived.