One million EU citizens given right to live and work in UK

ALMOST one million people were granted European Union citizenship in 2016, giving them the right to live and work in the UK.

Approximately 995,000 people acquired citizenship of an EU member state in the year of the Brexit referendum, a significant increase on 2015 when the figure stood at 841,000.

Meanwhile, the total number of people who were granted British citizenship stood at approximately 150,000 – an increase of almost 30 per cent on 2015.

Freedom of movement rules state that EU citizens are allowed to live and work in any of its member states.

The latest statistics, published by Eurostat, are likely to reignite calls for Britain to adopt tough new border rules after Brexit.

Immigration was one of the most prominent battlegrounds in the EU referendum with greater border con- trols a key issue for many Leave voters.

The data showed that just over 10 per cent of the 995,000 people who acquired EU citizenship in 2016 were former citizens of another EU country while the vast majority came from non-eu countries or were stateless.

Moroccans, Albanians and Indians made up the three largest groups. Just over 100,000 people from Morocco, 67,500 people from Albania and 41,700 from India acquired EU citizenship. Almost 60 per cent of those Indian citizens acquired UK citizenship. Citizens of India, Pakistan and Nigeria were the three main recipients of UK citizenship. ♦ Britain is now one of only five countries to meet the UN’S foreign aid target, as even Germany failed to give 0.7 per cent of its national income last year. The UK, which is bound by law to meet the target, gives nearly double compared to the average, new figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development show.