LETTER FROM LONDON
This is only a blog post and its conclusions remain to be verified further, but it has still caused a sensation in recent days in the UK as it corroborates a diffuse sentiment: expatriates residing in the country have left en masse under the combined effect of Brexit and the pandemic. The very serious Financial Times drew two articles from it, the first titled “The exodus of non-natives from the United Kingdom”.
According to the article dated January 14 published on the website of the Economic Statistics Center of Excellence (a satellite research center of the ONS, the British National Statistics Office), up to 1.3 million people born abroad and living in the United Kingdom would have left the country between summer 2019 and summer 2020. They would be 700,000 in London alone, which would therefore have lost 8% of its population in one year ! It would be the biggest fall since World War II, say the study’s authors, statisticians Michael O’Connor and Jonathan Portes.
Job Loss
The British capital, so famous for its cosmopolitanism, its easy-to-find jobs and its open-mindedness, would no longer attract young working people?
It must be said that, like other metropolises in confinement, it has lost a lot of its charm. Life had resumed a little in the summer of 2020, but most pubs, bars and restaurants closed in November, during the second lockdown and have not reopened since (a third lockdown was declared in early January). Buckingham Palace has been deserted by the royal family, Oxford Street is empty, the theaters of the West End have not raised the curtain for almost a year … Only the parks are full – and more, especially on weekends.
“It is clear that we are at a low point. The City is completely dead. I was in Covent Garden a few days ago, it could still be fine: at least there were food trucks. The good thing is that we can walk like never before, the city is ours, we can cycle there, it’s great ”, testifies Fabrice Boraschi, installed in the British capital since 2006.
The Frenchman works in the City for a European bank. Like most employees of large companies, he has been working from home since March 2020 and it weighs on him, like so many others, especially since the schools closed in January. “Two children at home, like lions in a cage when the evening comes, it’s not easy. ” There was no question of leaving for Mr. Boraschi, however.
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