The Effects of Brexit on Migration
How has Brexit changed immigration in the U.K.?
Since Brexit Was Finalized, Migration to and From of the U.K. Has Changed in Several Ways.
Perhaps most significantly, the migration of European Union citizens to the U.K. has dropped significantly due to the end of the free movement policy provided to citizens of E.U. member states (Office for National Statistics [ONS], 2022).
Pre-Brexit, as E.U. citizens, British nationals were able to freely cross borders into other E.U. member states to live and work. They could even remain in that nation after their employment ended. Citizens of all E.U. member states were similarly able to easily live and work in the U.K. (European Commission, 2022). The short video above, produced by the European Parliament (2017), explains this policy in more detail.
Post-Brexit, the United Kingdom is no longer entitled to the free movement policy. Migration between E.U. states and the U.K. is now more difficult for both British nationals and E.U. citizens, reducing capacities for movement. This is highly restricting as London was one of the largest areas of migration for E.U. nationals before Brexit went into effect (Sumption & Walsh, 2022). This reduction in ease of mobility and employment has led to a significant decrease in the number of E.U. citizens immigrating to the UK (ONS, 2022). By April 2020 during the transition period, net migration between the E.U. and the U.K. had fallen 58% since 2016 (Sumption & Walsh, 2022).
But What About the Rest of the World?
Citizens of E.U. member states are now subject to the same U.K. migration controls system as nationals from non-E.U. countries, such as visa and permanent residency applications. These systems are largely driven by family ties or labor and are similar to many other countries (Sumption, 2022).
Post-Brexit, non-E.U. nationals actually have an improved ability to reside in and migrate to the U.K. because “skills requirements were reduced to allow applicants in middle-skilled jobs” and the "salary threshold fell from £30,000 to £25,600" (Sumption, 2022). Because of this "liberalization [in policy] for non-E.U. citizens" (Sumption, 2022), net migration of non-E.U. nationals has increased as a result with around 331,000 arriving over the past year. During this same time period, around 50,000 E.U. citizens left the U.K. (ONS, 2022). Portes (2022) argues that labor shortages are partially to blame for the increase in non-E.U. migrants to the UK. He asserts that due to shortages in certain employment sectors from the stricter migration policies on E.U. citizens, the U.K. increased access to Tier 2 visas for non-E.U. nationals. This was done to relieve pressure in sectors most affected by the shortages as fields like healthcare became overburdened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, non-EU migration increased due to factors such as the war in Ukraine, increasing arrivals of international students, and freer movement from lifted COVID-19 restrictions (ONS, 2022).
Other Consequences of Brexit for the U.K.
The U.K. has taken substantial economic losses since it departed from the European Union. Reportedly, Brexit has cost the U.K. around $124 billion in “lost output” due in part to labor shortages and lowered business investment (Atkinson, 2022).
Brexit also reduced the gross domestic product (GDP) of the U.K. by 5.5% (Springford, 2022). However, the increase in non-E.U. migrants may have helped slightly to protect the U.K. economy and prevent an even larger reduction in GDP (Portes, 2022). Brexit has even been predicted to be detrimental to the economy of the European Union. Looking forward, Tian et al. (2021) predict that the British economy will “react negatively” overall to Brexit and that economic growth will slow substantially in the near future. Additionally, Brexit also seems to have worsened social tensions and exposed intolerance in the U.K. (Pickard et al., 2022).
Page References
Atkinson, A. (2023, January 30). Brexit is costing the UK £100 billion a year in lost output. Bloomberg.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-31/brexit-is-costing-the-uk-100-billion-a-year-in-lost-output
European Commission. (n.d.). Free movement - EU nationals. Retrieved April 11, 2023, from https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457
European Parliament. (2017, April 4). Your EU citizenship rights [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qz4yqM6NXM
Office for National Statistics (ONS). (2022). Long-term international migration, provisional: Year ending June 2022. UK Statistics Authority. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2022
Pickard, H., Bove, V., & Efthyvoulou, G. (2022). You (Br)exit, I stay: The effect of the Brexit vote on internal migration. Political Geography, 95, 102576. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102576
Portes, J. (2022). Immigration and the UK economy after Brexit. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 38(1), 82-96.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grab045
Springford, J. (2022, December 21). The cost of Brexit to June 2022. Centre for European Reform.
https://www.cer.eu/insights/cost-brexit-june-2022
Sumption, M. (2022). Shortages, high-demand occupations, and the post-Brexit UK immigration system. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 38(1), 97-111. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grab046
Sumption, M., & Walsh, P. W. (2022, February 15). EU migration to and from the UK. The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/eu-migration-to-and-from-the-uk/
Tian, Y., Ma, S., Rui, R., Yu, Z., & Tian, M. (2021). The analysis of impact of Brexit on the Post-Brexit EU using Intervented multivariate time series. Acta Mathematicae Applicatae Sinica, English Series, 37(3), 441-458. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10255-021-1022-z