Who blames Brexit for their decision to leave the UK? The departure of skilled Germans from Britain after the referendum

Abstract

Although the referendum on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union—better known by its portmanteau Brexit—had no immediate legal consequences for migrants, the changed public atmosphere and looming consequences for their status are creating uncertainty among migrants in the UK. This article analyses the impact of Brexit on Germans who lived in the UK and returned to Germany in 2017/18. Our analysis relies on the first wave of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS), a novel probability-based sample of German return migrants from the EU member countries. The results show that more than half of German return migrants from the UK are strongly affected by Brexit. Furthermore, those who returned on account of Brexit are more likely to blame the political situation, the lack of social security, and their dissatisfaction with life in their host country than those who did not return on account of Brexit – or than those returning from other EU15 member countries. In sum, our results indicate that Brexit may have the unintended consequence of driving out skilled and socio-culturally more integrated migrants who had been living in the UK for several years.