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In 2020, there were approximately 815,000 Polish nationals living in the United Kingdom, the most of any European Union member state. Additionally, there were 404,000 Romanians and 321,000 Irish nationals living in the UK in this year. Luxembourg was the EU member state with the fewest citizens living in the UK, at just 520 in 2019. In terms of British nationals living in the EU, Spain was the most popular destination, at almost 285,000 Britons, followed by France and Germany, which had British populations numbering 145,000 and 110,000, respectively. 

The EU settlement scheme

After the Brexit referendum of 2016, the fate of EU citizens living in the UK, as well as that of British nationals in the EU, was suddenly unclear. Although the rights of EU citizens to remain in the UK were affirmed at various points during the Brexit negotiations, the EU settlement scheme to handle this issue wasn't launched until 2019. As of 2025, there have been almost 8.4 million applications to this scheme, with Romanian nationals being the most common nationality, at 1.8 million, followed by 1.27 million applications from Polish nationals, and 740,000 from Italian nationals. 

Migration still one of the top issues for voters

In 2025, immigration was seen as the second most important issue for voters and was consistently ahead of many other issues in the months leading up to the UK's 2024 general election. Net migration to the UK has risen sharply since 2021, reaching 872,000 in 2022 and remaining high in 2023. Although there has been a clear decline in net migration from EU nationals since the Brexit vote, there has been a far larger increase in non-EU net migration. Despite pledging to bring immigration down, the previous Conservative government gradually lost trust on this issue with voters, with just 15 percent seeing them as the best party at dealing with immigration, one the even of the last election compared with 20 percent who thought Labour would handle it best.