Mapping social science research on Brexit and migration

Irish citizens living in the United Kingdom (UK) enjoy a privileged immigration status, which in turn facilitates access to a number of economic and social rights, perhaps most importantly a right to—and thereby rights in—work. European Union (EU)…

In the past few years, more than six million EU citizens living in the UK have transitioned to a new immigration status. The only evidence they have of this new status is in digital form. This group is now navigating the UK's ‘compliant environment,’ designed to deter unauthorised migration…

This article discusses post-Brexit asylum policy in the UK. On the surface, Brexit had little impact on asylum, but Brexit, combined with the new phenomenon of small boat Channel crossings, created the conditions for a new and extreme UK policy agenda.

The book offers interdisciplinary analyses of the impact of Brexit on the rights of EU27 citizens in the UK, Britons in the UK and the EU, and third-country nationals. It combines a historical examination of citizenship and migration between the UK…

The scholarship on the politics of immigration often frames governments' responses to far-right mobilization as a return to border closures and a rowing back on neoliberalism. In this article, I draw on and expand the scholarship on coloniality to address the limitations of this diagnosis.

This book examines the implications of Brexit for Africa-UK relations amid a ‘new scramble’ for the continent. Engaging Nkrumah on neo-colonialism and recent scholarship on global coloniality…

This research paper is devoted to the analysis of the effect of Brexit on Slovak healthcare workers in the UK. The main objective of the research is to estimate the impact of the fallouts and the extent to which Brexit has had on Slovak healthcare professionals living and working in the UK.

Part of an accelerated trend to integrate algorithms in immigration decision-making, the UK's EU Settlement Scheme relies on automated data checks as an essential and mandatory step in the application for UK residence. In this article…

This special collection examines how immigration and asylum policies have evolved since Britain left the European Union. The referendum was won on the promise of ‘taking back control’, yet, since Brexit…

Since the European Union referendum in 2016, UK net migration has increased to record levels.

The Brexit process created a loss of rights and heightened hostility towards EU migrants within the UK, even among groups previously shielded from such animosity, notably EU academics. This paper is based on 24 clear instances of microaggressions…

This study investigates the reintegration of tacit skills among Polish and Lithuanian migrants returning from the UK amid Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a CAWI survey of 740 returnees, it explores the application of tacit skills acquired abroad in their origin countries’ labor markets.

This article analyses the socio-demographic impact of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union on recent Spanish emigrants living in the UK. The political process resulted in a change in the status of Spanish nationals living in the United Kingdom.

In this article, the UK's ‘safe and legal (humanitarian) routes’ are evaluated by examining how they are positioned in the post-Brexit migration regime, and how these domestic provisions compare to those underwritten by international protections. The Hong Kong British Nationals (Overseas)—HK BN(O)…

The end of free movement and the introduction of the post-Brexit migration system represent the most important changes to the UK migration system in half a century. Coinciding with the aftereffects of the pandemic…

Migrant activism, particularly of Polish migrants in the UK, is a dynamic and interesting area in which to exploring intersections of social movement theory, politics, and global communication. This article examines the role of “transmigrants”…

The EU Settlement Scheme, a product of Brexit, both continues and breaks with the EU legacy, offering dismantlement for the vulnerable and continuity for the rest. In its attempt to keep the rights of EEA and Swiss citizens as close to their EU format as possible…

Transnational European migrants develop identity trajectories and a sense of belonging in a country other than their own and constantly renegotiate them.

This article explores stay-return motivations among Polish migrant essential workers in the UK and how the combination of Brexit and Covid-19 shapes them. It conceptualises Brexit and Covid-19 as polycrisis, ie multiple…

Migrants' subjective sense of home deserves further research attention. In the particular context of the United Kingdom's (UK's) decision to leave the European Union (‘Brexit’), we interviewed 10 European citizens living in the UK about their sense of home…

This paper examines the impact of Brexit on international student migration. In a structural gravity model, we estimate student migration between 69 countries for counterfactual scenarios in which the United Kingdom leaves the European Union one year before the referendum.

Drawing upon ethnographic research with families as they navigate a year in ‘Brexit Britain’, this article explores how people live with Brexit, examining the effect of Brexit politics on everyday personal life, particularly relationships with family.

Following ‘Brexit’, the UK leaving the EU, we analyse the effects of changes in the legal framework on EU residents and compare them with UK citizens, employing a difference-in-differences framework. The research focuses on several dependent variables, including labour supply and wages…

In the aftermath of Brexit, migrants in the United Kingdom found themselves navigating uncertainties. Drawing on questionnaires and interviews with French nationals residing in England…

Drawing from a qualitative longitudinal study with young migrants from Lithuania and Poland in the UK, this chapter explores how they understand the category of social class and position themselves in the racialised British class system.

In January 2021, the UK Government launched the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visa, in this way offering humanitarian protections to its former colonial citizens. Introduced following the imposition of National Security Law (NSL) in Hong Kong SAR…

By removing rights from British citizens and EU27 citizens in the UK, Brexit has redefined the value of national citizenships. This article shows the experiences of British citizens living in Belgium and the UK who considered obtaining Irish or Italian citizenship by descent…

Brexit brought an end to the free-movement rights of EU citizens in the United Kingdom, but the rights of the poorest Europeans were being actively curtailed even before that. From 2010, street homeless EU citizens were deported through a series of pilot schemes operating in London. In 2016…

This article examines the emergence of a new immigration regime in the United Kingdom, following its exit from the European Union, to uncover the entanglements and intersections of biopolitics, geopolitics and ideology in migration and migration governance.

This article contributes to two interconnected fields of study: recent literature on intra-EU migration, specifically South–North flows; and scholarship into the impact of intersecting crises on (im)mobilities.

This article applies the concept of Britain as a community of citizens and a community of communities to the analysis of post-2004 Polish migrants. This concept received its clearest articulation in the 2000 report on The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain chaired by Bhikhu Parekh…

Although research on return migration is growing, little is known about returnees’ plans and attitudes regarding further migration. This article contributes to the filling of this knowledge gap by studying the likelihood of engaging in further mobility among Polish and Lithuanian returnees.

The life strategies of Polish post-accession migrants built after 2004 were based on the specific conditions then prevailing in Poland and the UK. However, conditions have changed over the years and recent events – particularly Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic…

Many Central and Eastern European countries recognized the benefits of migration of their citizens after the EU enlargement in 2004, such as financial remittances and obtaining education abroad.

This article examines the Brexit-driven remaking of some EU families into mixed-status families. Drawing on original research conducted in 2021-2022 with British, EU/EEA and non-EU/EEA citizens living in the UK or the EU/EEA…