Britain's new brain drain is just beginning

Telegraph

18-03-2025

Net inward migration has reached staggering levels in Britain. We are absorbing such high numbers that even 250,000 would seem like a modest figure. Many arrivals are imposing huge fiscal costs; our public services and infrastructure are buckling under the strain. Failure to bring it down trashed the contract between government and citizen, destroyed public faith in the political class and may end up putting the Tories on an electoral par with the Monster Raving Loony Party.
Amid this slow-motion disaster, it's easy to forget that, not so long ago, Britain was a nation of emigrants. It was an exodus of people which kept politicians awake at night, not an in-flow of 1.2 million. Between 1815 and 1914 some 10 million people left these islands to seek new lives and opportunities in Australia, Canada, the US and New Zealand.
After the Second World War, so many fled that Winston Churchill issued a plea against the desertion of 'the old land', later describing emigrants as 'rats leaving a sinking ship'. The cost of fighting the most expensive war in history had triggered a series of economic crises – massive national debt, increased rationing, housing shortages – which swiftly dissolved any post-victory euphoria and pushed people to seek prosperity elsewhere.
Even as late as the mid-1980s more people were leaving the country than entering it, despite the near mythologised Windrush generations. Today, tired of flatlining growth and stagnant living standards, the rats are again packing their bags. This is now a country where 28 million private sector workers are expected to support nine million who are economically inactive, six million public sector staff and 13 million state pensioners. Where the top 1 per cent of earners pay 29 per cent of income tax and the top 10 per cent pay nearly two-thirds, and are then pilloried for failing to pay their 'fair share'.
No wonder 400,000 workers are reportedly planning to move abroad in the next two years. It's a miracle the figure isn't higher.
Even in the aftermath of Brexit, leaving has never been easier. Psychologically, it's no longer the commitment it was in the days of the Ten Pound Poms heading Down Under, or the Irish taking a week-long steamship journey to Ellis Island. Cheap flights and improved communications have made the process far easier.
Video calls and voice over IP make keeping in touch with Mum and Dad easier, and returning to see relatives two to three times a year is no different from how often many of us manage to reunite with the family when we live at opposite ends of the country. With rapid flights we can get back from Faro to Newcastle faster than we can drive up from Portsmouth.
And there's no shortage of places to go. We're fleeing not just to the Anglosphere but to Europe and the Middle East. Close to 250,000 British expats are now living in Dubai, with a similar number in Abu Dhabi. And the more British people there are in these cities, the more palatable they will seem to those left behind.
Back in the 1940s, Ontario Premier George Drew staged a series of publicity stunts to attract British immigrants. Today, Elon Musk believes that, 'if you want your team to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be'.
Were his buddy Donald Trump to open up a visa route to our top earners, it would surely plunge Britain into an even greater fiscal crisis.
Frankly, it would be precisely what our useless politicians – though not our once-great nation – deserve. Having treated the hard-working less as a prized horse pulling a wagon than a nag to be flogged until it collapses, they can't be surprised that so many are starting to make hay elsewhere.
The UK lost a net 10,800 millionaires to migration last year, a 157 per cent increase on 2023 and more than any other country bar totalitarian China.
There's still hope. When a population has sufficient energy and drive and the conditions are right, recovery can be rapid. Think West Germany and Japan after World War II.
But that relies on giving people the opportunity to build back again. Look also at Zimbabwe and South Africa – wealthy countries all but destroyed by incompetent and vicious, predatory governments. And with every net zero, DEI, welfarist, tax-and-spend policy Labour is moving our future further from the first world towards the junk heap.
For many contemplating emigration, the question may soon be 'when', not 'if'.