Britain | Demography

Eastern European migrants stop coming to Britain

Brexit did not persuade them to depart, but an economic slump might

|PETERBOROUGH

OLENA HRABOVENSKA, who owns several Polish food shops in Huntingdon and Peterborough, shudders to remember the Brexit referendum in 2016. The campaign to leave the EU had unleashed ugly prejudices. Cards about “Polish vermin” were posted through letterboxes. Her customers seemed despondent, asking: “what’s the point of being here if we’re not appreciated?” Soon afterwards, eastern Europeans’ numbers started to decline, but not because they rushed for the exit.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Farewell to all that”

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