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Britain is a nation of immigrants. And these charts show it

Britain is a nation of immigrants. And these charts show it

Theresa May has today announced a crackdown on immigration. Presumably this will be completely different from the crackdown she announced in 2010, which has seen net migration fall during her tenure as Home Secretary.

Oh wait, no it hasn't. Net migration hit a record high of 330,000 at the last figures. The home secretary believes mass migration is a threat to social cohesion in Britain, but migration is writ large in our history, especially recently.

We asked Statista to run the numbers to find out the top five countries of origin of immigrants for the past half a century.

Ireland was traditionally the source of the most immigrants, but has been taken over by India, Poland and Pakistan.

The Office for National Statistics estimates that three quarters of the growth in employment in the last year was accounted for by foreign nationals.

Moreover, as this interactive map shows, every country has its own individual story of migration.

More:How the Labour and Tory immigration policies compare

More:The countries Brits welcome - and dislike - immigration from

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