Where to start with the net migration figures? As someone who has generally defended liberal immigration policies, I could just shout, yet again, about the economic benefits. That would no doubt annoy a few readers, get some angry clicks, and add precisely nothing to the conversation.

Or I could point out that this is what Britain voted for in 2016. The migration described in today’s figures is the result of the UK government implementing migration policies entirely of its own choosing. We took back control and this is what we did with it. This outcome is wholly legitimate: it was chosen by our democratically elected government.

Instead of continuing their decade-long pantomime show of promising reduced migrant numbers, ministers could try some honesty

That too might make some people angry. They might well feel that, no, this isn’t what they voted for, either in 2016 or in 2019. Their views, they might say, have not been reflected in migration policy or honoured by politicians who promised to listen.

And I think they’d have a fair point. I’m personally very relaxed about migration. But I think the people who are angry about it are perfectly entitled to be very cross. Because those elected representatives, the ones who made and implemented the migration policies that I quite like, haven’t been honest or open about those policies.

They could have said:

‘We now have control over migration policy and we’re going to use it to open our labour market to significant numbers of workers from non-EU countries and to large numbers of students too. We’re going to do that because we think this is good for the economy, for the public finances, for our HE sector and our public services. We know that a few people don’t agree with us, but governing sometimes means doing things in the national interest that some people don’t like. Sorry.‘

But they didn’t say that. They said:

‘If you’re unhappy about migration, you’re right. We agree with you: it’s a bad thing. We’ll reduce numbers, we really will.‘

And they said this even though, as today shows, they had no real intention of doing so. That is not brave and it is not honest. It is not good for trust in politics.

Instead of continuing their decade-long pantomime show of promising reduced migrant numbers, ministers could try some honesty. They should also rethink the way we do migration statistics.

Honesty would start with disaggregating the migration numbers. When you move from discussing ‘immigration’ in general terms to looking at particular groups, you quickly find that apparent public concern about this issue is very shallow.

Don’t like ‘immigration’? OK. But how do you feel about Britain taking in Ukrainians fleeing war?  What about Hong Kong British Nationals? Foreign-born doctors and nurses holding the NHS together? Or foreign students?

I could go on. Pretty much all of the particular groups that make up that general ‘immigration’ population are actually fairly popular with the British public. And reducing net migration numbers means admitting fewer people from those popular groups. Which would be a political problem to add to the economic challenge that would come from a more restrictive policy.

So cutting immigration is far, far from simple. It would mean tough choices and trade-offs, the stuff that politicians – of all sorts – are often very reluctant to explain to the electorate. It’s easier to pander than to explain: ‘You’re right to be angry’ is a much easier message to sell than ‘actually, it’s more complicated than that’.

Could we ever have a mature national conversation about immigration? As rage burns over today’s figures, that probably seems unlikely, but I remain optimistic. A good first step might be to get rid of those figures, or at least, change the way we publish and report them.

A single net migration number is a relatively recent invention of British discourse. It was only in August 2010 that the Office for National Statistics began producing quarterly bulletins on migration that embedded the headline figures in public imagination and political conversation.

The importance of that headline number ebbed for a bid during Covid, when normal data collection wasn’t possible and migration patterns changed. And sometimes, irregular migration (small boats) has commanded more attention. But a one-number account of migration has dominated discourse on the topic, and not for better.

Migration is far, far too complicated to understood via one number. That headline figure for net immigration conceals many crucial differences and distinctions. It lumps together Ukrainians, Hong Kong British nationals, Nigerian nurses and Swedish students. It fails to distinguish between those immigrants who will be in Britain temporarily (the vast majority) and those who will settle here permanently.

A single figure for net migration is a terrible way to understand and to discuss migration – as much of the political and, yes, media commentary around today’s figures proves. We should get rid of that single, crude figure and find a better way to count and report and debate migration. Removing students from the headline count might be a reasonable place to start, but a reform of our migration statistics should go further than that. It should include much clearer publication of data on migrants’ qualification levels, occupations, incomes and visa types and durations.

Where to begin with the net migration figure? Let’s start with getting rid of it.

I am under no illusions that this would be easy: no doubt some would suspect another liberal elite attempt to hide the truth as they see it. But our immigration debate isn’t going to get any better as long as we obsess over that single figure.