Brexit failed to curb immigration to Great Britain – on the contrary, it exploded. This is shown by an internal federal document. What does this mean for the initiative against a Switzerland of 10 million? The Council of States will discuss this on Monday.
December 13, 2025, 7:58 p.mDecember 13, 2025, 7:58 p.m
Stefan Bühler / ch media
“Take back control” was the slogan for Brexit. On June 23, 2016, almost 52 percent of Britons voted to leave the EU. The most important goal: ending the free movement of people. There was a promise of sovereign control over immigration.
“Brexit got the UK done”: demonstrator in London.Image: Matt Dunham
It is a promise that also moves people in Switzerland. Currently because of the SVP’s initiative against a 10 million Switzerland, also called the “sustainability initiative”.
On Monday, the Council of States will debate the referendum, which ultimately – like Brexit – amounts to a termination of the free movement of people. The population of Switzerland must not exceed ten million by 2050. “Otherwise the Federal Council will have to terminate the international agreements driving population,” it says on the initiative’s website. Take back control.
Just: What does the termination of the freedom of movement of people bring? How does it work when immigration no longer follows the needs of the labor market but is controlled by the state?
That’s exactly what the National Council’s Foreign Policy Commission wanted to know. She has ordered an interpretation order on immigration to the United Kingdom after Brexit from the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) in Federal Councilor Beat Jans’ department. In November, the SEM provided a six-page fact sheet with “background information,” as it is titled.
The SEM first looks back. In the years before the Brexit vote, i.e. before 2016, “net immigration mostly fluctuated between 200,000 and 300,000 people,” it states, based on data from the “Migration Observatory” at the University of Oxford. Until then, EU citizens would have made up the majority of immigration. The proportion ranged from 59 percent to a maximum of 77 percent of all immigrants.
EU citizens give the British the cold shoulder
But shortly after the vote, immigration numbers fell, long before Brexit was implemented and the free movement of people ended. “The recovery of the economy in southern Europe, the fall in the value of the pound, political uncertainty and the reluctance of British employers towards EU migrants were responsible for this,” says the SEM paper.
In January 2021, when it left the EU, the kingdom introduced a points system. Since then, people from the EU and those from third countries have been subject to the same rules. Upper limits for people from non-EU countries have been abolished. “The points-based system should officially bring more ‘control’,” writes the SEM.
But the move away from the free movement of people created “new dependencies on migrants and students from non-EU countries” and it “weakened labor market-oriented mobility within Europe”. In other words: Instead of being able to easily recruit employees in Europe, British companies are more dependent on people from other parts of the world.
With side effects: “Net immigration rose to historically high levels in 2022 and 2023,” notes the SEM. The Office for National Statistics estimate the peak value to be 906,000 people per year in 2023. In 2024, after the first legal tightening, this number was halved to 431,000, partly because family reunification was severely restricted. But the number was “still significantly above the values of the 2010s,” writes the SEM.
Apparently, Brexit significantly changed the origins of immigrants: in 2020, around 94,000 more EU citizens moved away from Great Britain than moved in. This is what the Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated. According to the, this number was in 2024 Migration Observatory with minus 96,000 EU citizens.
The end of the free movement of people had an effect. That just didn’t change the overall balance: “Very large immigration flows of non-EU nationals” have “clearly exceeded” the emigration of people from the EU since the end of the free movement of people.
Where do the new immigrants come from?
Almost half of the people from non-EU countries who immigrated to work “came from India or Nigeria, especially in the health and care sector,” says the SEM paper. And further: “Loud Migration Observatory In 2024, Indians were by far the largest single nationality among all immigrants at 17 percent, followed by Pakistanis with 8 percent and Chinese with 7 percent.
The SEM’s conclusion: “After Brexit, EU immigration fell significantly and immigration from third countries rose sharply, especially from Asia and in parts from Africa.” Great Britain has “significantly higher overall net immigration figures” than before the Brexit vote.
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer’s government is working on further tightening migration laws. More than ten years after the slogan “take back control”, London is still trying to get immigration under control – at least as much as before the end of the free movement of people.