A total of 252,000 more migrants arrived in the UK than left in 2010 – the highest figure ever for a full calendar year.
It was due to a huge fall in the number of people emigrating, especially Britons who left at their lowest rate for more than a decade.
The world economic crisis was blamed for fewer people looking abroad for work and fewer Britons looking for a retirement in the sun.
Foreign students also arrived in the UK in record numbers while Eastern European workers are moving back to the UK at three times the rate they did at the height of the recession.
The figures are a major headache for David Cameron who has pledged to bring net migration down to the “tens of thousands”.
The Home Office last night insisted it was till too early to see the impact of planned measure to cut numbers and that more up to date provisional estimates suggest the trend is reversing.
However, some of the main drivers behind the figures are beyond the Government’s control, such as emigration and the flow of EU citizens.
Matt Cavanagh, associate director at the think thank IPPR, said: “Today’s figures remind us that it was a mistake for the Conservatives to choose “net immigration” for their overall political target.
“The figures confirm that net immigration in 2010 was the highest on record. Not because immigration is rising – as the ONS make clear, it has been stable since 2004 – but because emigration is falling.
“The government cannot control emigration – just like it cannot control immigration from the EU – so it ends up trying to clamp down even harder on those areas of immigration it can control.”
A total of 591,000 migrants arrived in the UK during 2010 while 339,000 left, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Britons made up 136,000 of those leaving, the lowest level since 1998. The number of people emigrating who are of retirement age has also fallen dramatically from 21,000 in 2005 to 6,000 last year, including a fall in retiring Britons from 16,000 to 4,000 over the period
Related figures showed the number of people leaving for work purposes in the year up to March 2011 was 174,000, the lowest level in five years.
Previously popular emigration destinations such as France, Spain and Australia have all seen falls.
The trend reinforces claims that fewer Britons are retiring to southern Europe because the exchange rate with the euro is so low while fewer people are looking for work overseas because of the dire global economic conditions.
In a further blow for ministers, a record 238,000 long term students arrived last year.
And the net inflow of Eastern Europeans workers from Poland and other countries who joined the EU in 2004 has trebled from 16,000 in 2008 to 49,000 last year.
Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of pressure group Migration Watch UK, said: "At over a quarter of a million in 2010, net migration was the highest it has ever been. It was more than five times the level of 1997, when Labour came to power.
"It is absolutely vital to get this down to less than 40,000 if we are to keep our population below 70 million."
UK Independence Party home affairs spokesman Gerard Batten MEP said: "The Government has to own up. It hasn't a clue how to deal with the problem, and it has to be honest that whilst our migration and asylum rules are set in Brussels it will never have the power to control it."
The net migration figure was the highest for a calendar year although the level for the 12 months to September 2010 was higher at 255,000.
The Home Office last night leapt on separate, provisional figures that showed net migration in the 12 months to March this year showed a fall to 245,000.
Damian Green, the immigration minister, said: “The latest net migration figures are also encouraging, showing a fall since the recent peak in September 2010, but we are clear there is much more to be done."
Downing Street said Prime Minister David Cameron remained committed to reducing immigration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands.
Asked whether he thought it could be done, Mr Cameron's official spokesman said: "Yes, he does, but clearly that process is going to take some time."
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So much for the promises to bring immigration down to the TEN'S OF THOUSANDS but we have over a Quarter of a Million a year entering this country, it'll be more as they don't know how many are here Illegaly.
THE LIB/LAB/CONNED are one and the same say one thing and do another.
Have any of them followed their Manifestos, and if not haven't they lied to the Electorate?
