UK net migration hit a record breaking 745,000 last year - more than three times higher than promised by the Tories in their election manifesto.

Rishi Sunak was warned the Tories face a "do or die" moment by right-wing backbenchers after the Office for National Statistics dramatically revised its estimates for the year to December 2022 by an additional 139,000. It originally said 606,000 more people arrived in the UK than departed during that period.

Official figures published today put net migration for the year to June 2023 at 672,000 as an estimated 1.18 million people moved to the UK and 508,000 left. People coming to the UK to study was the largest driver of net migration from outside the EU (39%), followed by work (33%), mostly in the NHS and social care. The war in Ukraine, arrivals of Afghans and Hongkongers also partly fuelled the rise, but the number fell from 19% the year before to 9% last year.

Most people arriving in the UK were non-EU nationals (968,000), followed by EU (129,000) and British (84,000), the ONS said. The figures are all people who have arrived in the UK legally. The latest figures on illegal immigration show in the year ending September 2023, there were 45,081 detected irregular arrivals to the UK, down 16% on the year before. Four fifths (83%) of these arrived via small boats.

The Tories pledged to cut net migration to below 100,000 in their 2010, 2015 and 2017 election manifestos but abandoned the promise for 2019. Instead, the party committed to making sure "overall numbers come down". At the time, net migration stood at 226,000.

The latest figures are a fresh headache for the Prime Minister, who is already in a bind after the Supreme Court torpedoed his attempts to deport migrants who arrive in Britain illegally to Rwanda. Mr Sunak made stemming the tide of small boats a key pledge earlier this year but the plan hit a brick wall as top judges ruled it was not a safe country to send asylum seekers to.

The PM said he will introduce emergency legislation to deem Rwanda a safe country in a desperate bid to revive the plan.

Ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman ramped up pressure on the PM, saying the numbers are a "slap in the face" to the public. She tweeted: "Today's record migration stats show we've let in an extra million people in just 2 years, a population equivalent to Birmingham. The pressure on housing, the NHS, schools, wages, and community cohesion, is unsustainable. When do we say: enough is enough?

"We were elected on a pledge to reduce net migration, which was 229k in 2019. Today's record numbers are a slap in the face to the British public who have voted to control and reduce migration at every opportunity. We must act now to reduce migration to sustainable levels. "Brexit gave us the tools. It's time to use them," she told Mr Sunak.

The right-wing New Conservatives group, led by MPs Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger, demanded the PM immediately publish an emergency plan on how he plans to curb the numbers. In a statement, they said: “The word ‘existential’ has been used a lot in recent days but this really is ‘do or die’ for our party. Each of us made a promise to the electorate. We don’t believe that such promises can be ignored.

"The Government must propose, today, a comprehensive package of measures to meet the manifesto promise by the time of the next election. We will assess any such package and report publicly on whether it will meet the promise made to the electorate. The Prime Minister, Chancellor, and new Home Secretary must show that they stand by the promises on which we were elected to Parliament. We must act now. "

Former Cabinet Minister Simon Clarke tweeted: "This level of legal immigration is unsustainable both economically and socially. There is no public mandate for it, it is beyond our public services’ capacity to support and it undercuts UK productivity and wages by substituting cheaper foreign labour." He demanded an "urgent change of approach", with curbs on the list of shortage occupations allowed to bring in migrant workers and a requirement for higher earnings for those seeking a visa.

Former minister Neil O'Brien said: "In every election since 1992 we have promised to reduce migration. Today's extraordinary numbers mean the PM must now take immediate and massive action to do just that."

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the figures expose the "scale of utter Tory failure" on immigration, asylum, and the economy. She said: “These figures are driven by a 54 per cent increase in work visas and a 156 per cent increase in health and social care visas which prove the Conservatives’ abysmal record on skills, training and workforce planning, as they have run our economy into the ground. They are still failing to make changes Labour has called for to end the 20 per cent wage discount in the immigration system and to link it to training requirements."

She accused the Government of leaving the taxpayer on the hook for failures to fix the system, with 50,546 asylum seekers housed in hotels in the UK at the end of June - costing nearly £3 billion a year.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Director, branded the Government’s asylum policy "reckless, dysfunctional and in need of a drastic overhaul". He added: “To truly tackle the criminal gangs and save lives, the Home Secretary must urgently establish safe routes so that people don’t need to risk their lives making the perilous journey across the Channel."

Home Secretary James Cleverly said: "This figure is not showing a significant increase from last year's figures and is largely in line with our own immigration statistics. The Government remains completely committed to reducing levels of legal migration while at the same time focusing relentlessly on our priority of stopping the boats."

Downing Street said that net migration remains "far too high" and indicated that further measures could be introduced to bring down the figures. The Prime Minister's official spokesman promised to leave "no stone unturned" in tackling abuse of the visa system.

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