Britain’s net migration figures being ‘spun’ to hide ‘real problem’ of mass immigration, says David Shipley

David Shipley has suggested the Government’s latest net migration figures are being “spun” to mask the “real problem” of mass immigration.

Speaking to GB News, the journalist reacted to the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s announcement that UK net migration has now been halved.

Fresh data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the figure at 171,000 in the 12 months leading up to December 2025, a 48 per cent drop year-on-year to the lowest level since early 2021.

“It's obviously good if we are getting migration down, but these statistics are pretty misleading and are definitely being spun,” Mr Shipley told GB News.

The journalist explained that the number of Britons leaving the UK compared unfavourably with the economic activity and criminality in some migrant countries of origin.

“We’ve had a quarter of a million British nationals left forever, and 118,000 EU nationals left forever", he said.

“We brought in something like 627,000 from non-EU countries… which includes a lot of people who don't tend to be particularly economically productive.

“We are not running a sensible migration strategy here,” he insisted.

“Effectively, we are replacing high-quality, productive people with lower-quality, less productive people.

“That is not going to help the economy. It's not going to help productivity. It's also not gonna help the crime stats.

“What we are running at the moment is a migration model in which we are replacing low criminality, high economic output people with the opposite.

“I think this is the real problem, the Government is convincing itself that it's going to be fine just because they've got this net migration stand-down,” Mr Shipley warned.

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As a remedy, the journalist suggested the UK further takes influence from other European countries' approach to the issue.

“Denmark, for example, captures very good data on the relative criminality and economic activity of migrants from different parts of the world,” the journalist advised.

GB News Deputy Political Editor Tom Harwood said he was “quite taken aback” by some of the data on country of origin.

He said: “Some countries that are literally next door to one another can be massively different in terms of crime statistics, in terms of the number of people in social housing, the number of people in work.

“For example, the average Indian in Britain actually earns more than the average Brit, and they are much less likely to be in social housing.

“However, Pakistanis are much more likely to be in social housing, much more likely to be dependent on the state and have a different criminal profile as well."

Announcing the new figures today, Shabana Mahmood said: "Net migration has fallen by 82 per cent in just three years. We will always welcome those who contribute to this country and wish to build a better life here. But we must restore order and control to our borders.

“As these statistics show, real progress has been made, but there is still work to do. That is why I am introducing a skills-based migration system that rewards contribution and ends Britain’s reliance on cheap overseas workers.”