Flood of British refugees into Scotland in the SNP era may surpass the level of Irish famine migration in 1845/1851

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/13/boom-internal-migration-britons-quit-england-for-scotland/

From The Irish Famine in a Scottish Perspective 1845-1851 by Géraldine VAUGHAN, in 2015, it is estimated that there were roughly 115,000 Irish incomers to Scotland for those six years.1

From the NRS, in the ten years from 2012 to 2022 (latest data), around 100 000 arrived in Scotland from other parts of the UK, increasing sharply from 3 000 in 2012 to 12 500 in 2022. This trend seems likely to be due to worsening austerity in other parts of the UK unprotected by SNP policies, on child poverty, HE fees and prescription charges, lower crime, a better-performing NHS, low cost ferry travel, and contrary to those scare stories about higher taxation in Scotland.2

Net migration out of England to the rest of the UK, soared to 33 701 in 2023, according to the ONS.3 It seems likely that most of these migrants will have chosen Scotland. Add these figures to probably increased numbers in 2024, further increased numbers in 2025 as Labour reveal the full extent of Austerity 2, and the flood from rUK into Scotland will be worthy of the same kind of academic studies, the Irish Famine migration attracts.

Sources:

  1. https://journals.openedition.org/mimmoc/1763?lang=en#:~:text=19%20It%20nevertheless%20remains%20difficult,incomers%20for%20those%20six%20years.
  2. https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/population/population-estimates/mid-year-population-estimates/mid-2011-to-mid-2021-rebased
  3. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/13/boom-internal-migration-britons-quit-england-for-scotland/

16 thoughts on “Flood of British refugees into Scotland in the SNP era may surpass the level of Irish famine migration in 1845/1851”

      1. Indeed asparagusnextleft.

        I watched a programme on TV where a few couples from England decided to move up to Scotland to live.

        The quality of life and also the value for money on property prices compared to England being major reasons for their decision to move up here.

        However for the media in Scotland that, as news, is way too positive to highlight and instead they , as a media, try to convince us that we are losing people from Scotland who move to England to avoid paying what the media states is the ‘highest’ tax in the whole UK.

        God forbid they as a media would undertake a forensic compare and contrast to the many benefits we in Scotland get via our government while many in England (& Wales) lose out in failing to get these same benefits from their respective governments who are responsible for them as countries within the UK.

        Turn on the TV News in Scotland on most nights , via either BBC Reporting Scotland or STV News, and watch various reports from throughout Scotland and you will see that many people in higher positions within Scotland are English people , so obviously they as English people, must have all failed to get the message that life is apparently, according to the media, far far better and easier in England than it is in Scotland.

        Or perhaps they, as some of the English people working and living in Scotland, are not so easily taken in by all of the negative media hype and instead are enjoying living their best UK lives but only as citizens of Scotland.

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        1. Totally agree BBC Landward is a prime example of a Scottish rural programme which is just another attempt to introduce English people living and working in Scotland. I am an SNP member of many years but I am coming to the conclusion that they are content to see Scotland fully colonised by our English cousins which will put Independence out of reach completely.

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          1. zSo Anonymous you have reached the conclusion that the SNP are ‘content to see Scotland fully colonised’ by English incomers.

            How pray do you think the SG could stop them coming? It is an open border between the two nations and the SG has no powers to stop people settling in Scotland if they come from England, Wales or NI because there is free movement of people within the UK.

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  2. Off topic, I know – but still on the subject of things flooding over the border into Scotland…

    Is this an issue worth investigating further? The burning of household rubbish, including plastics, in energy-from-waste-plants in order to produce electricity – which simply creates more harmful greenhouse gases.

    There are fifty such plants in England, with the building of another one approved last month. Scotland has six, but at least the SG have banned more being built. The trouble is, though, that those plants are locked into long-term contracts with waste operators, some of whom send their rubbish up from England to be burned here.

    I’d like to think that Independence would at least give us the opportunity to stop England’s rubbish from crossing the border.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3wxgje5pwo

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    1. If you look at a weather app , i have ” windy ” you will see that over the last few weeks more than usual the wind in Scotland has been a southerly wind as it is today , coming feom the south , you can also see on “windy” what the pollution level is NO2 , PM2.5 , a lot of it is is coming from Germany and Netherlands particularly Rotterdam area but also from London Leeds and so on factories traffic energy plants etc , when we get wind coming from the north or the west as we often do , it is much much cleaner .

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  3. This has been going on for a long time , yes austerity could be contributing to it but the main driver is people selling their english or welsh home retiring from their job coming to Scotland and buying a house twice the size with money left over because property in Scotland is much cheaper , they then dont work at all many in their fifties , or they get a part time job in or near the Scottish town theyve moved to .As for their view on Scottish independence , its NO NO NO , they treat Scotland as inferior to england they do not truly assimilate they join existing groups of english people already here for socializing.

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      1. It’s why Scotland needs to ensure only people who live in Scotalnd more F/T than P/T, and who have lived in Scotland for at least three years, are allowed to vote in Scottish elections/referendums. As someone from north of England, I did not vote in the devolution referendum because I felt it was for the Scottish people to decide having only lived in Scotland for a few years by then. In retrospect I should have voted. Anyway I think it may have been Alex Slamond (?) who mentioned that voting should be dependant on residency in Scotland, as is the case in other countries. There are sooo many non doms, just look around Edinburgh New town to see the mass of empty large properties, but those who own hem could well be voting in Scottish elections?
        Most people new to Scotland will votae according to what they are told by the media, which is extremely worrying for our election in 2026…

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  4. Having always liked Scotland and several of my closest friends being Scots in England, I took a rational decision after the 2019 election that Scotland would be a slightly safer place in which to age and become vulnerable. I try to integrate and do my bit e.g. I regularly give blood. I’m open-minded about independence and would accept the result if residents of Scotland voted for it. My main worry would be the hell that rUK would unleash on us. They are the political and in many cases biological descendants of those who devised concentration camps and brought about the Irish Famine, nor do they respect the rule of law. We’d need to be very sure of having the right leadership and full public support in place even to attempt it. As an aside, I read recently that independence supporters are more likely than unionists to accept incomers. Some of the comments here don’t appear to reflect that.

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  5. The Clearances, the higher unemployment made people in Scotland leave. £10 passage. Devolution 2000. Scotland has lower unemployment. Better government policies. Most people moving to Scotland appreciate the better Scottish Gov policies.

    The Ref 2014 was lost because 200,000 voted No to stay in the EU. That has changed. More people would support and vote for Independence. The UK Gov are attacking the pensioners. The pensioners and their families vote.

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  6. there is no such thing as ‘the Irish famine’ it was a genocide. A famine occurs when there is insufficient food. In the period of 1845-1852 there was ample food to feed Ireland but the colonialists of that time, as now, decided to send/sell that food around other places rather than helping the Irish people who’s potato crop failed.

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  7. There are two distinct media areas where Scotland’s place in the UK is determined as being always lower down the pecking order to England’s place.

    That is in political reporting and Sports news.

    Yesterday England appointed a new Football manager for their National team and Scotland played Portugal in the Nations league.

    (Not shown ‘Live’ on a UK TV channel where “you are” in Scotland)

    SKY News in their later edition of their Sports news decided that the appointment of the new Football manager for the English National side was the more important sports news above Scotland’s nil-nil draw with Portugal.

    So SKY News top Sports story was the appointment of a new Football manager for England’s national team and not the important Football game Scotland played that evening with Portugal .

    So the pecking order for last night’s Scottish football game against Portugal, as a Sports story, was considered by SKY News Sport as secondary to England’s news on their new Football manager for their national side.

    Compare and contrast if that had been reversed as in if Scotland had appointed a new Football manager for our national football side yesterday and England’s national football team had played ‘Live’ that same day with Portugal in the Nations League.

    What then would have been SKY News top Sports story that same evening ?

    What indeed. (I think we all know the answer to that).

    Also who as a nation within the UK rarely gets to see their national side play ‘Live’ on a UK TV channel and who as a nation in the UK always gets to see their side play ‘Live’ on a UK TV channel ?

    (Indeed we see their games always broadcast ‘Live’ on a UK TV channel in their qualifying matches for International tournaments, in Friendlies and also in European and World Football tournaments)

    Is this petty of me and a tad trivial to note ?

    Yet it is how Scotland , as a nation within the UK, is regarded by what is very much an English dominant media whose first concern and interest lies not with Scotland as a current UK nation but instead is only ever concerned with and interested in England.

    Indeed is it not true that only when both the media and pro UK politicians feel that their UK is threatened by any increase in support for both a political independence party and too Scottish independence do they then , as a combined force, pretend that we , Scotland, are important both within their UK and also to their UK.

    The reality of course ,as an ongoing situation , being the opposite of course.

    Mind you it seems, based on the result of the last UK GE in Scotland, that some people in Scotland see no problem in their country, Scotland, being way down the pecking order of significance within the UK.

    That is Scotland always being considered way below England in status as a country by both the media and politicians in the UK.

    In fact if their same voting pattern continues as voters in Scotland , as witnessed in the recent GE, then in the 2026 Scottish elections it will seem as if they are, as voters and citizens living in Scotland, both embracing and welcoming being treated as second class citizens within the UK.

    Which as a reality, both the pro UK media and pro UK politicians , are only too happy to continue to oblige them in considering them as such.

    Where Scotland is only relevant in the context of it’s resources being needed for distributing (purged) mainly to only one specific other nation within the UK.

    A UK where one nation alone within the UK dominates and takes precedence in significance over all of the other nations within the UK.

    That is down to that one nation dominating the UK media and also that one nation having the largest number of politicians in constituency seats in the UK parliament at WM.

    (543 seats in English constituency seats at WM -as the largest allocation of seats in the UK parliament- and with only 57 constituency seats in Scotland at WM the so called UK parliament).

    So then what hope or chance does Scotland have in ever seeing real change, real progress or even recognition as a significant and worthy nation as long as it is tied to a UK , whose media and also whose political classes at WM , seem to both equate the UK as always being synonymous with England ?

    (Which is very much the reality considering how they dominate both the media and politics within the UK).

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