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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

See previously https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/26/number-brit...

The article is however quite bad at distinguishing between:

- British nationals moving their place of residence from the UK to the EU

- British nationals already resident in the EU changing their nationality so they can stay there after free movement is taken away from them

And doesn't mention the third category: EU nationals normally resident in the UK deciding to return, and whether being deemed ineligable for "settled status" or indefinite leave to remain is a factor in that.

People who I have spoken to about this tend to be pragmatic; even a damaged UK provides more economic and social freedom than many parts of eastern Europe. Especially compared to rapidly de-liberalising Poland. However, we've yet to see how badly the government copes with the end of the transition period.

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It also appears to omit that a lot of skilled workers from EU countries are doing the exact same but in reverse. I always liked the Guardian, but their stories on brexit have been terrible, to the point that you can't trust them at all.

Yep, nearly everyone on my team is from outside UK. Mostly EU, brexit hasn't affected them at all.

That's not my experience; a lot of friends and colleagues have left the UK to go back to the EU since the referendum vote.

Also, in terms of recruitment, very few people are now interested in coming over to the UK for engineering positions. We used to have a lot of talented candidates from EU countries (especially Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, etc.); we have not had a single applicant from these countries since the vote.

Just because they're still working in the UK that doesn't mean that they haven't been affected at all.

FTA: “the study found huge changes in migration patterns of UK citizens since the 2016 referendum, which contrast with largely stable ones among nationals from the 27 EU states remaining in the bloc.”

On the other hand, https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/2019/brexit-uncertainty-motivate... shows a (smaller, and, eye-balling it, not with a break in the trend at time of Brexit) uptick in EU naturalizations in the UK, too.

I think by definition if you are able to naturalize then you haven't moved over recently.

As you say, I think way more significant will be the numbers of EU citizens resident in the UK deciding to leave.

You can move from the UK and claim permanent residence in another EU country until the end of this year.

By "naturalization" I was referring to the fact the article is talking about people getting passports. You can't get a passport unless you've lived there for a substantial amount of years.

I assume he is not easily coming back either way.

Hence does this detail really change the brain drain discussion?

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