If the UK were to open its borders today, there wouldn’t immediately be an unimaginable number of immigrants from around the world flooding into the country. Instead, we’d expect to see what we always see and what “diaspora dynamics” explains, a slow increase in the number of immigrants from each ethnic group.

Mexicans move to where other Mexicans are (apparently Germany), and Sudanese go where other Sudanese people live. There are myriad reasons, but it boils down to the cost of migration: fiscal and psychological. The more substantial the income gap between their home and destination countries and the bigger the diaspora there, the more beneficial a move becomes.

What we’d see is a slow trickle that starts a chain reaction. Perhaps Venezuelans would congregate in Middlesborough, and Iranians would move into Birmingham. It would play out over decades. The country will adjust and ultimately benefit from the new human capital and consumers.