Nerve 12 - Let's Talk About Emigration for a Change

Let's Talk About Emigration for a Change

We hear a lot these days of record numbers of people who come to the UK. The idea for this article came in response to an ongoing public debate about a revolving door of population movement in the United Kingdom. Liverpool - crowned as the European Capital of Culture, as a ‘World in One City’ - is a microcosm of the national public debate, with one exception: Liverpool was the only city whose population fell in the 1990s – all our other major cities were expanding. People were leaving Liverpool faster than they were arriving and some would say Liverpool is still feeling the economic consequences of this population loss. Small firms and vital services have struggled to survive as the numbers of consumers fell. We still haven’t fully recovered.

Despite the need for populations to grow to survive, public debates tend to focus only on the negative aspects of the influx of people to Britain. This suggests a one way flow of people into Britain, which implies we will soon be bursting at the seams as more and more economic and political migrants seek to make the UK their home.

This arrival of non-British into the UK seems to be regarded as a ‘bad thing.’ Others coming into ‘our’ country, taking ‘our’ jobs or claiming ‘our’ benefits and living in ‘our’ houses. Recent hysteria about economic migrants from Eastern European countries being the most recent example, displaying negative often ugly undertones.

The reality is of course much more complex than this. For a start, people flows are two-way and British citizens are leaving these shores in their hundreds of thousands to live and work elsewhere. UK statistics show there are a greater number of immigrants than emigrants but the latter is growing at a faster rate. So, let’s talk a little about emigrants rather than immigrants for a change…

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2006 saw the largest number of people leaving Britain since this type of information was collected in 1991. Nearly 400,000 people left in 2006. More than half of this number were British citizens going to make a life outside of the UK. You might assume they were all from the overcrowded areas of London and the South East – half of them were, but not the other hundred thousand - they were from other parts of the UK.

So, where are our fellow countrymen and women going and why? ONS show the most popular destinations are Australia, New Zealand, Spain and France, and, some to the United States. We know where. Do we know why?

It’s more difficult to be precise about the characteristics, motivations and outcomes of our emigrants. However, a 2006 BBC poll of a thousand people showed that over half wanted to emigrate, motivated by wanting a better quality of life, better weather and a feeling that the UK is too expensive. We don’t know exactly what they are leaving to do, but consider how we have unprecedented geographic mobility, large numbers of older people who retire abroad, and a flexible global labour market. You can bet the countries which are actively seeking young professionals to cover their nursing, teaching and computing vacancies attract them from outside their native populations.

Are British emigrants treated with respect and fairness in their new countries? We would hope if we emigrated we would be greeted with enthusiasm and supported to settle into our new environment without prejudice. If the reaction in the UK to new arrivals is the example, could negativity and suspicion be the rule? The report by the House of Lords Economics Affairs Committee in April this year on the impact of immigration merely states that immigration doesn’t have an overall postive or negative effect on the UK yet. But Chair of the Committee Lord Wakeham made it to the front pages of the newspapers; how come something that is ‘non-news’ became news?

So much of the tone of the debate about new arrivals to Britain is far removed from how we would want to be treated. Is the public debate in Australia, New Zealand and other destinations for British emigrants focussed on new arrivals as emotionally charged as the messages from our media and politicians?

Do we expect that we would be welcomed but don’t provide this courtesy to others? Little attention is paid to British arriving elsewhere - we accept we have a right to move around the world and half of us want to do just that - do we accept that others also have this right?

All statistical information is from ONS, BBC

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