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For comparison, when asked in the UK Parliament, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs gave an estimate for the number of British national

For comparison, when asked in the UK Parliament, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs gave an estimate for the number of British nationals living abroad of around 13 million people. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060322/text/60322w15.htm http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/v... Which given the UK population of 64 million, is a massive diaspora and completely dwarfs the 7.5 million foreign-born residents in the UK. edit - these figures led me to the sobering conclusion that here in the UK we should really be keeping quiet about immigration and hope nobody notices

dataker 12y ago
Wow. Do they count UK population as unclaimed UK citizens(sons, grandsons,...) ? I had no idea there was such a massive diaspora going on.
pjc50 12y ago
It's the legacy of colonialism. There is an assumed right for Brits to go anywhere we want. It looks like a majority of the Brits abroad are in Commonwealth countries, which is sort of what I'd expect. Over a million in the US! If you look closely at UK newspaper comments/letters complaining about immigration, quite a few of them are from people living in Spain. And one of the more notorious anti-immigrant columnists lives in Florida, IIRC.
- kjjw 12y ago
  What I find particularly funny is that: - a positive net immigration rate into the UK has been critical in continuing to develop our economy, - those people from the UK living in Spain will, mostly, be retired people, - those newspaper comments will complain bitterly about immigrants not contributing, stealing welfare, and so on. Which is exactly what those people complaining are doing, and exactly not what the people they complain about are doing!