Key Points
Economic and labour market factors have played a major role in explaining fluctuations and trends in UK immigration over the past two decades.
Colonial links and networks remain crucial to understanding the composition of immigration flows and the mechanism of migration systems.
UK immigration policy has had a significant impact on overall migration inflows since the early 1990s. However, immigration flows are not only affected by migration policies, but to a considerable, often even larger extent, also by other public polices such macro-economic, labour market, social welfare, education and/or trade policies.