Of absolutely no surprise to anyone outside Westminster, it now emerges that the British government has had no idea how many migrants came from the 27 European Union member states:

EU immigration to the UK was underestimated by more than 1.6 million between 2012-2020, it has emerged, after the ONS revised its methodology to produce new figures that dwarf previous estimates.

Previous immigration figures were based on surveys contributing to a model known as Long Term International Migration (LTIM), which now appears to have wildly missed the mark.

The new technique, called Rapid, is based on actual tax and benefits data instead, and “has the benefit of removing uncertainty”, said the ONS. It reveals that in many years of the last decade the number of EU migrants was more than, or close to, double previous estimates.

“The statistical narrative is just completely different to what we thought,” Madeleine Sumption, director, Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, told The Telegraph.

In the year ending March 2019, for example, 410,000 are now assumed to have arrived, as opposed to the 186,000 previously estimated, up a substantial 120 per cent.

I often find the comments under the line more instructive than the journalism, so here is one that explains what it all means:

EU Survivor
24 Jun 2021 10:28PM
In the years prior to the Brexit Referendum, the leave campaigners argued that the immigration figures massively underestimated the true picture, and cited NI numbers issued as evidence that there must have been far more immigrants than admitted to.

This was denied by those pushing the remain side of the argument, including the then Government led by Cameron.

We now hear that looking at tax and benefits, the figures were massively underestimated.

While this is suggested as new information, following a new methodology, it appears to me that there was a form of corporate wilful negligence in avoiding using such a system previously, when it was clear it would demonstrate more accurate, and far higher levels of immigration.

So, despite all the claims from remainers of false information from the leave side - the remain side had been providing and I believe lying about the levels of immigration for years.

For Remain read government.  For government read corporate whores.