With both Reform UK and parts of the Tory Party competing with each other as to who they will deport, it is worth investigating how far they could actually go and who would be left in the UK.
The First Settlers
To begin with, the very first people to live on these islands were immigrants. After the last Ice Age, around 12,000 years ago, humans migrated here from continental Europe as the ice sheets retreated. These Mesolithic hunter-gatherers settled, fished, and built communities long before the idea of nations or borders existed.
Later came the Neolithic farmers from what is now the Middle East, who brought new technologies, livestock, and crops. The Bronze and Iron Ages followed, with waves of Celtic-speaking peoples arriving from Europe. Every one of them, by definition, was an immigrant or the descendant of one.
Conquests and Colonies
The Romans invaded in AD 43 and ruled for nearly four centuries, leaving roads, baths, and cities that shaped Britain permanently. When they withdrew, they were replaced by Anglo-Saxons from northern Europe — peoples whose language evolved into early English. Then came the Vikings from Scandinavia, followed by the Normans from northern France in 1066.
Each group left its mark — in place names, language, law, architecture, and even DNA. To remove everyone descended from immigrants would be to erase the entire population.
The Modern Age of Migration
Britain’s story of settlement didn’t end in the Middle Ages. The country became a global empire, trading, colonising, and drawing people from across the world — from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Ireland, and beyond. After the Second World War, immigrants from the Commonwealth came to rebuild the country, work in factories, staff the new NHS, and enrich British culture.
Today, around one in six people in the UK was born abroad — from Poland to Pakistan, from Nigeria to New Zealand. They work in hospitals, universities, farms, restaurants, and offices. Many are now British citizens; many others have children and grandchildren who call this country home.
Before we answer the question, some light relief with Stew.
So, Who Would Be Left?
If “immigrant” includes everyone who has ever settled in Britain — from the first hunter-gatherers to twenty-first-century arrivals — then the answer is simple: no one would be left. Every person living here is part of that long chain of movement and mixing. The so-called “native” Briton is a myth.
Even the white cliffs of Dover have watched countless newcomers arrive — and, in turn, become part of what it means to be British.
A Nation of Immigrants
Far from being an island apart, Britain has always been a crossroads — a place shaped by those who came, stayed, and made it their own. To deport every immigrant, past and present, would not only empty the country — it would erase the story of Britain itself.
