As Guido predicted yesterday Downing Street has tried to bury the ONS report on migration statistics this morning. You can see why…

In 2014 ONS immigration figures said there were 223,000 “long-term” EU migrants to Britain. Yet that year 421,000 National Insurance numbers were given to EU nationals. Why the discrepancy? Today’s report admits that if the official statistics had included EU migrants working in Britain for under 12 months then the real immigration figure for 2014 would have been 474,000. The ONS figures widely reported at the time missed a quarter of a million people. Remain are spinning that short-term migrants somehow don’t count – yet they still use the NHS, they are still a burden on public services, still claim benefits. The churn of short term migrants also means that the demand is a constant.

Meanwhile the number of EU nationals claiming benefits in Britain has risen by almost 42% in four years, from 92,000 to 130,000. The number of Eastern Europeans claiming out-of-work benefits has risen almost 177% from 22,000 to 61,540.

So the number of EU migrants is a quarter of million higher than the official statistics had suggested, and many tens of thousands more are claiming benefits. This is huge ammunition for the Leave campaign…