The aftermath of the Post Brexit referendum has brought a whole lot of changes and tweaks to the system of the British setup. These changes have affected the immigration of the EU nationals to the UK. The United Kingdom which has been tagged as a hostile environment for immigrants, most especially after the referendum with the evidence of a huge decline in immigration has had a huge effect in the net migration to the country. According to reports by the National Statistics at the end of September 2017, the number of immigration into the UK by EU citizens fell by 75, 000. This fall in number is really alarming, judging by the decline in productive and skillful migrants who were meant to provide a very great deal of service for the country.
There is a great need of work force and Europe is a continent which has experienced advancement in technology and workforce through the 20th century to the 21st century. The EU citizens have the necessary knowledge to bring development to the UK but with the Post Brexit referendum, the influx of people from the EU has reduced drastically. According to the same National Statistics, it is reported that the drastic reduction of immigrants is much countries of Eastern Europe that joined the EU in 2004. The figure of about 42, 000 became less than 6,000 people in 2017. These immigrants from Eastern Europe had over the years enjoyed the benefits given to them as EU citizens in countries of the EU. With the pulling out of the UK from the EU, things have changed for them. The laws on immigration have been tweaked and they are left at the other end of unfair policies – hence the drop in migration. The other groups are the immigrants from countries that have been long-term members of the EU. There has also been a huge drop in the annual immigration, which dropped from about 84,000 to 46,000 contributing to more than half, just in one year.
According to Jonathan Portes, who is a professor of economic and public policy at King’s College London; he said that the fall in the net migration of the EU was because the UK had become “significantly less attractive to European migrants, for both economic and psychological reasons”, in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. He also said that this is the major factor for the slowdown in the UK economic growth in relation to the major countries in Europe and other countries of the world. Also, the immigration minister, Caroline Nokes, spoke about the net migration, and she said: “Net migration remains 29,000 lower than it was a year ago and once we leave the EU we will be able to put in place an immigration system which works in the best interest of the whole of the UK. “At the same time, we have been clear that we want EU citizens already living here to have certainty about their future and the citizens’ rights agreement reached in December provided that.”