UK Big Immigration

While hundreds of immigrants consider Great Britain as an accessible “promise land” deciding to fly in our beloved island in bulks, its also Britons who emigrate in pursue of better luck or sometimes merely better weather. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released figures showing that more than 200,000 Britons emigrated during 2006, taking the total number between 1997 and 2006 to 1.97 million.

Another 1.58 million foreign nationals residents decided to leave back the always-carry-an-umbrella weather for places where the common “lets go for a few pints after work and then straight for fish and chips or kebab” thing isn’t part of the everyday reality.

So, let us leave numbers do the talking for once more. In the past decade we have 3.5 million UK residents, British nationals and not, running away from the big island while 3.9 million foreigners arrived over the same period.

The Institute for Public Policy Research, a think-tank, has estimated that there are more than 5.5 million British citizens living abroad leaving senior researchers to claim “probably the greatest period of emigration we’ve ever seen”.

What on earth is making our peers flee away from this God blessed place?