Brexit fuels brain drain as skilled Britons head
to the EU
A British-German study uncovers huge changes in
migration patterns of UK citizens since 2016 referendum
Toby Helm
Political editor
Sun 2 Aug
2020 07.57 BST
Migration from the UK to remaining EU countries has
increased by 30%.
Brexit has
sparked an exodus of economically productive people from the UK to European
Union nations on a scale that would normally be expected only as a result of a
major economic or political crisis, according to a detailed new study.
Using a
combination of official statistics across the EU and in-depth interviews with
people living in Germany, the study found huge changes in migration patterns of
UK citizens since the 2016 referendum, which contrast with largely stable ones
among nationals from the 27 EU states remaining in the bloc.
The report,
a collaboration between the Oxford in BerlinResearch Partnership – a project
made up of Oxford university and four Berlin institutions – and the WZB Berlin
Social Science Center, also found a “seismic shift” in the number of UK
citizens already living abroad who had decided to go a step further by
obtaining EU member state passports since 2016, showing how Britain’s vote to
leave the EU pushed many individuals into long-term decisions.
The study
says that migration from the UK to EU countries has increased by about 30%
compared to pre-Brexit numbers. Britons living in other EU countries who
decided to obtain EU member state passports as well as their UK ones had
increased by more than 500% overall, and by 2,000% in Germany.
Dr Daniel
Auer, a co-author of the report, said: “These increases in numbers are of a
magnitude that you would expect when a country is hit by a major economic or political
crisis.”
Moreover,
the study found that UK migrants are among the most educated and skilled of
those from any nation, with one of the highest net average income rates,
suggesting that Brexit has begun a steady drain of the most talented and productive
people to the continent.
In Germany,
UK migrants were among the highest earners, bringing in on average €2,812 a
month in 2019, just behind those from Austria and the US.
There are
now about 1.2 million British citizens living in the EU, between 120,000 and
150,000 of which are in Germany. In the four years since the Brexit referendum,
31,600 Brits have been granted dual British/German citizenship: 2019 saw 14,600
naturalisations compared to 622 in 2015.
About half
of all British citizens living in Germany will have dual UK/German nationality
by the end of 2020, the report says.
These increases are of a magnitude that you
would expect when a country is hit by a major economic or political crisis
Dr Daniel
Auer, report co-author
Interviews
with UK citizens living and working in Germany showed Brexit had made people
prepared to take on levels of risk that they previously would not have
considered.
A British
academic in his 40s, who is married with a young family – and who migrated in
July 2016 – told researchers: “The referendum happened and we immediately
changed our minds about buying a house in Bristol. Our whole emigration
decision hung on the referendum result.”
The
majority of interviewees who left agreed to either a pay cut or a pay freeze as
part of their decision. Some struggled to find a job. “I have still not found
work, which is not what I expected […] The cost of the move in personal and
financial terms is always difficult to foresee, and I’m starting to wonder if I
underestimated the risk involved,” said a British IT worker who migrated in
October 2019 with his wife and three children.
Co-author
Daniel Tetlow added: “We’re observing a new social migration phenomenon and a
redefining of what it means to be British-European. In 2019, Brits came in just
behind Turks in numbers receiving German citizenship – way ahead of Poles,
Romanians, Iraqis or Syrians, whom you might otherwise expect to be more
eagerly applying for German/EU citizenship.”
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