It can but we lack the political will, both Sunak and Hunt are neo-liberal technocrats.
In terms of immigration there are good and bad parts..
Breaking down the July 2022-June 2023 figures..
Total immigration was 1.2 million.
Total Non-EU Migration made up ~900,000.
Total Emmigration was 500,000.
Net Migration was above the June 2022 estimate which means the revised estimates are likely to climb towards 800,000 in a few months.
We granted 169,000 non-EU work visas but critically we also granted 154,000 dependent visas. This is horrific.
Indian, Nigerian and Zimbabwian made up about 64% of these.
Net Migration for work visas was 278,000.
We granted 378,000 study visas to non-EU applicants. Critically again, we granted 96,000 dependent visas. Need i really comment on this.
Net migration of study visas was 263,000.
We granted 83,000 Humanitarian Visas to non-EU applicants. These were mostly Hong Kong, Ukranian and a few Afghans. These have all been declining.
We granted asylum to 90,000 people, including about 40,000 boat people. This is horryfying and shows how incredibly soft we are. This should below 10,000. We deported about 2,000 people.
Net immigration here was 88,000.
We granted 70,000 family visas to non-EU applicants.
Net migration of this group was 39,000.
Other non-EU visas were raw figures of 25,000 and net figures of 17,000.
We recorded 21,000 British Nationals returning home.
Net Migration of British Nationals was actually -10,000.
We granted 117,000 EU work visas.
We granted 21,000 EU Study visas.
Net migration of EU nationals was -87,000.
..
The moral of the story is that we can park EU nationals for now. More are going than arriving.
We should ideall stop British Nationals emigrating. That's about 31,000.
Non-EU migration is a big mess.
We can park the humanitarian visas, they are fair enough and in long term decline. The 'Other' Visas are okay.
The raw study visa at about 282,000 is actually not a problem and the government is reducing the length of time you can stay afterwards to 12 months. The problem here is dependents.
The work visa system is a mess, the threshold is too low and should be increased to £40,000 per annum without exception. We have people arriving for close to minimum wage jobs instead of investing in ways to remove the need for these jobs or get part of the millions of people not actively seeking work to do so.
My primary irks are asylum and dependents/family.
To start with asylum, these are statstistically the most deprived and least educated immigrants. While i don't mind special humanitarian schemes or those to allow translators and the like (i.e. those who performed a duty to us) to come, I do not believe that we should allow people to come simply because their countries are poor and they don't want to stay in Bulgaria or France. I would eradicate most asylum so lets allow ~10,000 visas and get rid of about 80,000.
Family visas and dependents are where i have a big issue. We issued 320,000 visas to people who can theoretically sit on their rears all day. This is disgrace! While some of these will be children and valid for a family visa in my opinion (family visa should only be children under the age of 16, not the spouce), we should force the spouces to apply in their own right for a work or study visa. We can allow a joint work visa application to have a threshold of £60,000 combined rather than what would be £80,000.This portion should essentially be halved (bit more or less depending on the spouce and child ratios). We would reduce by 160,000 on this aspect (though there may be a bit more via successful work/study).
In short, non-EU was over 900,000 and about 240,000 was 'bad' migration. About 110,000 is nothing to be concerned with (humanitarian/small asylum/other). About 440,000 is work and study but measures should be taken to reduce the incentive here since we are still a bit soft.
So i guess the need for immigration somewhere about the 500,000 non-EU rate. Ideally we would limit emmigration from British Nationals and EU. Perhaps we could ban duel citizenship to reduce this.