According to data due to be officially published on Tuesday, the number of emigrants exceeded 200,000 in 2006, and a total of 1.97 million Britons left their homeland from 1997 to 2006.
Also over this ten-year period, more than one and a half million foreigners residing there left the country. Meanwhile, immigration to the UK over ten years totaled 3.9 million people, and in 2006 alone, 500,000.
According to The Telegraph, British parliamentarians intend to reject the statistical data prepared by researchers as unsuitable for practical work and demand a revision of the methodology for collecting information on demographic changes. The Finance Sub-Committee of the House of Commons is preparing to conclude that the lack of reliable and up-to-date data on migration processes hinders the implementation of government policy at the national and local levels.
Although the oldest ONS data dates back to 1991, some researchers believe that the current level of emigration is almost unprecedented in the country's history. According to a conclusion by Jay Winter, a representative of Yale University, a comparable exodus of Britons was last seen in 1911–1914, when 2.4 million people left the country. After that, a notable emigration surge occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when thousands of Britons moved to Australia, Canada, and the United States.
According to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), more than 5.5 million UK citizens currently live abroad. As IPPR representative Jill Rutter reported, a significant portion of these people left the country after retirement, which serves as evidence of a high standard of living in the UK. In addition, Rutter linked the emigration surge to globalization of the labor market and the departure of some immigrants who had previously acquired British citizenship.
Meanwhile, according to Lenta.ru, the British opposition believes the rise in emigration is explained by increasing crime and taxation in the country. David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary of the Conservative Party, directly linked the emigration explosion to the policies of Labour.