UNDER David Cameron’s premiership - with Nigel Farage’s UKIP breathing down Conservative necks - it became something of an annual ritual for the then Prime Minister to commit to cutting annual net migration to the tens of thousands. But, of course, it never happened.

Taking back control, the supreme promise of Brexit, hasn’t thus far quite materialised as many Leavers had confidently envisaged.

This week, official figures showed, in the year to June, total UK immigration reached 1.1m with around 560,000 people having left the country in that period, meaning net migration was a record 504,000; which, we were told, represented a city the size of Liverpool.

Not surprisingly, the ghost of Brexit past popped up to decry the number, saying the Conservative Party deserved to be "wiped out" because of it.

Farage also delivered a warning to Rishi Sunak, that the old bruiser might be considering dusting off his political boxing gloves from the back of his wardrobe. “The conditions for a new insurgency in British politics are ripe,” he declared.

With a jab towards the Remainer Chancellor’s chin, the ex-UKIP chief added: “Whether I take a more active role in Reform UK[formerly the Brexit Party] in future will depend on the extent of the betrayal of Brexit. But at the risk of stating the obvious, I didn’t spend 25 years of my life battling to secure a seemingly hopeless cause only to watch Jeremy Hunt give it away.”

Of course, 504,000 net migrants does sound an awful lot, particularly as the total for the previous year was 173,000.

For most of the 1990s net migration averaged around 40,000 a year but in this last decade it has been around 200,000.

If one examines the 504,000, then Farage’s Pavlovian reaction looks rather overblown. No surprise there.

The ONS explained that the rise in immigration was driven by “unprecedented world events,” which included nearly 312,000 people arriving here via legal routes from Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Ukraine.

However, the record rise was also driven largely by foreign students, whose number, along with their dependents, jumped to a high of almost 580,000, partly reflecting their “built-up demand” from a prolonged period of remote study during the pandemic.

But the fact so many fee-paying foreign students decided to come to the UK should be a matter of pride for Britain. Apart from anything else, they’re helping to keep our universities funded.

Downing St said it was considering “all options” to ensure the immigration system was working properly, including examining “student dependants and low-quality degrees”. When asked what low-quality degrees meant, it wouldn’t, or couldn’t, say.

Yet only last week the Chancellor, while stressing a long-term plan was needed to reduce migration without harming the economy, added: “We will need migration for the years ahead; that will be very important for the economy.”

As academics warned that universities could go bankrupt if foreign student numbers were curtailed to lower net migration - because they offset losses from home students – Sunak and Keir Starmer were busy wooing the CBI, which has called for more immigration to fill all those vacant jobs.

The PM told the captains of industry how Brexit was working, that the Government was “in proper control of our borders” and could talk to the country about the type of migration it wanted and needed. “We weren’t able to do that inside the EU; at least now we are in control of it,” he argued.

So, from Sunak’s perspective, being in control doesn’t necessarily mean lower migration; it can mean higher migration.

But hold on. Just 48 hours later, Suella Braverman, the embattled Home Secretary, told MPs Britain had “lost control of our borders” because of the large number of people crossing the Channel.

Cannily, the Labour leader eyes a political opportunity as the Government struggles to get a grip on migrant numbers.

While he won’t talk about what the Goldilocks quantum of migration should be, Starmer speaks of how British workers need to be trained with skills to “help the British economy off its immigration dependency”. An echo of Gordon Brown’s famous conference call of “British jobs for British workers” and a clear message to Brexit-supporting voters in the Red Wall seats Labour needs to win to return to power.

Compounding the row about legal immigration is that over illegal immigration and the continuing high numbers of Channel migrants.

As this year’s figure tops 40,000 - costing the taxpayer a not inconsiderable £2.5bn a year - the Government has done a deal with France to try to curb numbers, is liaising with Albania to reduce the contingent of its young men crossing the Channel and, of course, there is the Rwanda policy, which is still entangled in the web of legal challenges, meaning it may never see the light of day.

This week, Braverman appeared before MPs in what was a car-crash evidence session where she effectively admitted – barring the specific schemes to help migrants from Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan – there was no proper legal route for other asylum-seekers.

Labour’s Yvette Cooper said the Home Secretary was “effectively saying they need to make the dangerous journey. Shameful”.

If there were an easy answer to the migration question, it would have been found already.

Nonetheless, it is a minister’s job to find solutions and if none is found, then the political rhetoric, as the next General Election approaches, could harden thanks to the involvement of more extreme voices.

As Tory MPs increasingly express unease about the impact on public services of growing migration numbers, a poll showed public concern about immigration has soared to its highest level in more than three years with people placing it alongside the cost of living and the NHS as their main worries.

Scotland, with the SNP’s desire to turn the 2024 poll into a de facto referendum, is already set to see a bitterly fought election campaign. Neither it nor the rest of the UK really needs anything more to make the campaign atmosphere any worse.