This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.
You may have missed it, as the news has been very poorly reported in the British media, but the gulf between the reality of immigration versus the public perception of immigration is now as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.
The fact that most media outlets and most politicians have failed to acknowledge this truth is at the very heart of the problem.
Politicians and the media are not reflecting the truth about immigration, or keeping the public accurately informed about this most divisive political issue.
The facts are these: UK net migration has fallen to one of its lowest levels since 2012. Don’t believe me. Believe the Home Office and the Office of National Statistics.
The latest UK government data released shows that net migration currently stands at 171,000 for the year ending December 2025.
That means immigration halved in the last year, and fell by three-quarters since its 2023 peak of 900,000.
Immigration is projected to further decline to under 100,000 by the end of this year, plummeting to levels not seen since the 1990s.
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There is near silence across the media and the political realm about another bunch of facts and figures.
This time the data comes from the think-tank British Future which researches public attitudes on issues like immigration, integration, race and identity.
Just 16% of people think immigration fell in the last year. Half the public believe it has increased, and 51% expect it to go on rising, even though it’s declining.
The distortion is astonishing. It’s as if we’re living in a hall of mirrors. Fact has become fiction and fiction has become fact.
British Future talks of the “striking disconnect between reality and public understanding”.
How people perceive reality seems dependent on their political beliefs. Two-thirds of people “with sceptical views on immigration” believe immigration increased last year. However, only a third of people with “more liberal views” thought the same.
Six-in-10 people who want immigration reduced think numbers are rising, and only 15% believe migration numbers will fall next year.
People are also deeply confused when it comes to issues like asylum and immigration that’s for work or study.
The public estimates that asylum accounts for 33% of immigration. The true figure is around 9%. And 21% of people believe asylum accounts for over half or more of all immigration.
People think immigration for study accounts for 24% of immigration, whereas it’s actually 52%. Work immigration is also underestimated - at 23% compared to the actual figure of 31%.
A rot in the body politic of Britain has been revealed by these figures. We have whipped ourselves into fury based upon fantasy.
Immigration is falling yet politicians are framing the discussion around rising immigration figures.
It is baffling why the Labour Party has failed to make this clear. Indeed, why is the government not screaming these facts from the rooftops?
One suspects that Labour is too scared to challenge the falsehoods believed by their so-called ‘hero voters’ who they pursue in the mythical red wall above all others.
Labour has also built a series of policies which would need to be dismantled if the party dealt in the honest truth.
Evidently, Reform and the Tories have no interest in telling the truth about immigration.
The Greens and parties like the SNP are simply not listened to when they offer a take more in accordance with reality.
As for the media, this is perhaps the more concerning issue. We expect politicians to lie. We hope - often against reason - that the media will attempt to convey truth to the people.
Increasingly, though, the media - across both press and broadcasting - has degenerated into clickbait.
It is easier and more profitable to create outrage than to inform and educate. The media is also increasingly under financial pressure in the digital era.
An impoverished media is ripe for having the wool pulled over its eyes by unscrupulous politicians.
Understaffed newsrooms are ill-equipped to dig into the reality of issues like immigration versus the easily conveyed myths.
This bodes ill. Britain is basing an entire national conversation around phoney beliefs.
Policy is being built on phoney beliefs. People's lives are being shaped by phoney beliefs. Hatred is whipped up by phoney beliefs. People turn on each other because of phoney beliefs.
The hard truth is that each citizen must now fact-check reality themselves as if they were reporters of the first rank.
In a world where politicians act like influencers and the media is increasingly on its knees, voters must behave like statisticians and academics.
Evidently, that’s impossible. Most people drop in and out of news headlines. They’re not interested in fact-checking what politicians say, or exploring statistics which the media has failed to report.
We also live in a world where media literacy has never been worse. Far too many citizens have no idea of the difference, for instance, between opinion and reporting.
They confuse a reporter’s beliefs with the beliefs of the individuals they report on. They expect and demand that news dovetails with their opinions lest they be upset. And this is true across all age ranges.
This is a recipe for national unravelling. If a society cannot base debate upon facts, then it is in deep trouble. If we have no shared reality, then we offer ourselves up to the darkest of forces.
Unsurprisingly, many believe that unravelling is happening already, catalysed by these myths being spun around immigration.
Neil Mackay is the Herald’s Writer-at-Large. He’s a multi-award winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, extremism, crime, social affairs, cultural commentary, and foreign and domestic politics
