The UK is currently having a debate about immigration.  Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, recently warned about the “discomfort and disjointedness” that uncontrolled immigration has led to in some British communities.  Whereas the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, Vince Cameron, has said such comments were “very unwise” and risked inflaming racial tensions. 

Against this background The Telegraph has released figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics showing how much of Britain’s population grow is reliant on immigration and how the number of foreign born residents has increased:

“The proportion of the population born overseas almost doubled in two decades to more than 11 per cent…It meant that just under seven million people living in Britain were immigrants…

The population stood at 61.14 million as of last June, the most recent estimate. Of that, 6.97 million were people who were born overseas – 11.4 per cent, the highest proportion on record.

The proportion had been rising steadily year on year and was almost double the 6.7 per cent recorded in 1991 when the foreign-born population stood at 3.85 million.

Some 762,000 of those now in Britain came from those eastern European nations admitted to the European Union in 2004, which gave them access to the jobs market. The majority, 4.7 million, were people born outside Europe.”

While immigration numbers are making some Britons uneasy, it is the problem of migration that is worrying many in one of Britain’s oldest ally, Portugal.  The recent economic crisis in that country, where the EU has been asked to give a rescue package has helped to drive many of Portugal’s bright young graduates overseas – particularly to  former colonies such as Angola, Mozambique and Brazil:

Portugal's Emigration Observatory says the number of Portuguese registered at consulates in Brazil jumped from 678,822 in 2009 to 705,615 the following year. In Angola, the number went from almost 57,000 in 2008 to just over 74,500 in 2009. The number of Mozambican residence permits granted to Portuguese in 2010, meanwhile, was up almost 13 percent on the previous year, to nearly 12,000.

The problem is not confined to Portugal though, Spain, Ireland, Greece, France and Italy are all mentioned as “bleeding talent”.  The trouble is that the loss of skilled emigrants is likely to keep struggling European countries in the economic doldrums for a longer period:

The first to leave (in a crisis) are always the ones with the most marketable skills," says Demetrios Papademetriou, the president of the nonprofit Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. who also chairs the World Economic Forum's migration task force.

Smart, creative and dynamic graduates provide vital fuel to stoke national economies, and the flight of this generation is "one of the most consequential byproducts of the (European) crisis," according to Papademetriou…

They are losing the people who can get them either out of the crisis long-term or who will be needed to start and fuel the recovery," Papademetriou said in a telephone interview.

The fear would be that the migration patterns are reinforcing a downward economic trend.  The parlous state of the home economy leads young graduates to leave for better work opportunities. The loss of that home grown educated talent makes it harder for those countries to pull themselves out of the recession and makes it more likely that further numbers will leave.  Maybe Britain should be thankful that it is still seen as a land to flock to, rather than a land to flee from.

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