Is there a reason why the government has failed to control its borders?

600,000 new people came to the U.K. last year, the government keeps saying it wants to bring immigration down but it keeps failing.

Two possible reasons

1. The government are incompetent. They want to bring down immigration but they are so bad at their job that they fail to do so.

2. The government don't want to, despite campaigning for years about bringing immigration down to the "tens of thousands".

It is probably a combination of both. Immigration is a scapegoat that the government use to rally up support and keep themselves in power.

As much as I'm not a fan of the current government I don't think it's point one.

The reason that immigration is so high is not because the government is unduly lax or the post Brexit immigration act so loose. It is largely because in a political attempt to make people angry about immigration (because who's going to vote Labour if your bothered about immigration) they have made immigration figures ever more transparent which means that you don't get a like for like comparison.

For example, until about 2012 when they added students (which they don't want less of, they are cash cows) to the figures, they only included economic migration. That part of the figures at 220,000 net is actually a third lower than the prior peaks.

The immigration statistics now include asylum and various humanitarian schemes which would previously have been all separate.

They are too kind to asylum seekers and give too many family visas but those numbers are no different to the past 20 years.

Even on illegal migration, it's mostly compliance with international law that's keeping it going. Patel and Braverman have genuinely fought on that one.

Partially agreed. Immigration is still way above the tens of thousands even if you discount the recent influx of refugees. We were told by the Conservatives that we couldnt lower immigration because of the EU, yet now we are outside of the EU it remains at similar levels to before.

They are just liars. They dont care about immigration, in fact they favour it because it helps the economy. They just claim to be against it because it wins them votes.