East European immigration to UK hits decade low The number of eastern Europeans registering to work in the UK has fallen to its lowest level in over a decade, with immigrants deterred by the weak pound and uncertainty of Brexit. Researchers at the Oxford Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford found that the number of people applying to work in Britain from the eight countries which joined the EU in 2004 — including Poland, Latvia and Lithuania —— has declined sharply since the Brexit referendum. Registrations for national insurance numbers fell to around 26,000 in the first quarter of 2017, compared with just under 40,000 in the same period last year. This is the lowest level of first quarter registrations by so-called A8 nationals since their governments formally joined the EU, and is a fraction of the 2007 peak, in which more than 111,000 east Europeans applied for documentation to work in Britain. A national insurance number does not mean someone can...
