NET migration into Britain is falling fast, official figures released today show.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures comes as Labour leadership, and Makerfield by-election, contender Andy Burnham is understood to have promised to stick with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s hard-line approach to migrants if he becomes premier.

PM Sir Keir Starmer crowed: “Net migration has fallen 82 per cent. I promised to restore control to our borders. My government is delivering.”

The drop is due to tougher rules for work and student visas. Ms Mahmood has pledged to go further and make it harder for legal migrants to secure indefinite leave to remain.

Her policy is deeply unpopular among Labour MPs, and former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has described it as “un-British.”

Mr Burnham is in a tough fight in the by-election against the xenophobic Reform UK party, who are calling the mayor “open-borders Andy.”

Polling shows that Reform and Tory voters generally believe that migration is rising even when it is not.

An ally of Mr Burnham was quoted as saying his attitude was that “we need to tell a positive story about the contribution of migration to our country, but we cannot do that unless people trust that the people they vote for have control over our borders.”

This apparent shift to the right follows similar U-turns on Treasury fiscal rules, Brexit and other issues, leading to growing dismay on the parliamentary left, offset only by the belief that only Mr Burnham can rescue Labour from electoral catastrophe.