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Prime minister Theresa May has told Eastern European countries that the vote to leave the European Union signals a "very clear message" that the UK wants to reduce migration.
May told press at a conference in Warsaw on Wednesday that the British people voted to send a:
very clear message that they do not want free movement to continue as it has in the past.
She repeated the message in Bratislava, despite the UK having roughly sixteen times the number of citizens living abroad than Slovakia does.
The referendum, which was a yes/no question on membership of the EU, featured an extensive debate about the freedom of movement principle.
However, EU citizens are estimated to account for only just under half of all non-British immigrants to the UK.
In addition, according to the UN Population Division, the UK has the greatest number of citizens living abroad of all EU member states.
Max Galka of Metrocosm recently discussed this in a map of EU countries' diaspora, as well as discussing how we have two tiers of words to discuss immigrants.
In their common usage, an immigrant is someone from a poor country who moves to a rich country looking for a better life. An expat is someone from a rich country who goes to work abroad.
The UN data shows, when you adjust for population, the UK's figure comes to around 7.7 per cent while Poland's rises to 11 per cent, and Romania's to 17 per cent.
There is also the point to be made that this map is for emigration to all countries around the world, if you focus on immigration to EU countries, the figure for UK nationals is around 1.2 million.
The point remains, as a country we consistently overestimate the percentage of the population that are immigrants...
...while passing over the fact that a large number of British nationals have benefited from emigration to other countries.
HT Metrocosm
More: Migration in Europe explained in four maps
More: This great map lets you explore the history of migration for every single country
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