The impact of 'uncertainty' on the Brexit referendum tracking UK migration to the EU and to Germany.

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the study reveals ... .. that the UK is facing a potential brain drain, losing the capacity and economic contribution of a fast increasing number of British citizens, many of whom are highly educated and highly skilled and have decided to invest their futures in continental Europe for the long term. Based on OECD and Eurostat data, the study shows that migration from the UK to remaining EU countries increased by around 30% compared to pre-Brexit numbers and British citizens obtaining an EU member state passport increased by over 500% and by over 2000% in Germany. Over the same period migration within the EU increased to a much lesser extent and recently stagnated whilst citizenship applications from other EU citizens within the EU27 saw little change. In sum, from 2015 when the Brexit referendum was announced in then Prime Minister David Cameron’s election manifesto, the UK to EU migration and naturalisation trajectories diverged dramatically from the norm and the numbers have continued on this trajectory in the subsequent years of observation. Co-author of the study Dr Daniel Auer says: “These increases in numbers are of a magnitude that you would expect when a country is hit by a major economic or political crisis.” Dr Daniel Auer, Berlin Social Science Centre & Study Co-Author Additional study data collected from controlled interviews of British citizens across all 16 German states, revealed an individual human calculation that an increased level of risk-taking and impulsivity was necessary in decision making in order to deal with the impact of the shock event. These decisions, it was found, were also taken and acted upon over a much shorter time period than equivalent decisions made pre-Brexit vote. As a result, more than double the number of interviewees that migrated post referendum reported taking a “big risk” (57% vs. 24% pre-Brexit) and evidently the trade-off between an insecure future in the UK and the risk of migration favoured, for many, the move with its higher risks. “The referendum happened and we immediately changed our minds about buying a house in Bristol. Our whole emigration decision hung on the referendum result.” British Academic, male, 40s, married with young family, migrated July 2016 The majority of interviewees that migrated post-referendum agreed to either a pay cut or a pay freeze as part of their migration decision, as compared to pre-referendum when the majority of interviewees received a pay rise. This confirms that the economic uncertainty and risk created by the Brexit referendum had a stronger influence on migration decision making, than the risks inherent in migration itself. And that risk calculation is still being tested today: “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 under-estimated the risk involved.” British IT Worker, male, migrated with 3 children October 2019 An unexpected outcome from the qualitative study of UK citizens in Germany was that many have made a much greater commitment to integrate or ’socially embed’ in their local communities as a direct result of Brexit. This was indicated in commitment to language learning and local community work along with a new pride in a British European identity. And the German state, in strategic acknowledgement of this new commitment, has decided, since the referendum, to grant over 37,000 (2021 figure) British citizens German citizenship while allowing them to maintain their UK identity indefinitely. “We’re observing a new social migration phenomena 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.” Daniel Tetlow, Oxford in Berlin & Study Co-Author The study concludes that ‘collective uncertainty’, triggered by Brexit, was and still remains powerful enough to alter migratory behaviour at scales comparable to the impact of a large scale economic shock. The decision made by the UK to leave the European Union is equivalent to an indiscriminate exogenous event that affects all British citizens in the EU and many in the UK, independent of whether or not they supported Brexit. And it matters because rigorous analysis is essential to an accurate understanding of the Brexit-induced migration patterns and the motivations driving populations that stand to be further impacted after the Brexit Transition period ends on December 31st 2020. If demonstration were needed of the dangers that poor quality data brings to policy making, the British Government’s Office of National Statistics acknowledged in 2019 that their own published migration figures, used to instruct British migration policy over the last decade, have not been fit for purpose downgrading the estimate of their net migration data to “experimental” status. analysis of UK to EU migration and naturalisation patterns.

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