Why don’t we know how many people are in Britain?
How many people live in Britain? You would think there would be a straightforward answer, but it eludes some of the nation’s brightest statistical minds. The problem of undercounting has worsened in recent years, largely because of high post-Brexit migration This week the Office for National Statistics (ONS) projected that our population will grow by some 4.9 million people over the next seven years, bringing Britain’s official population to over 70 million. The bulk of that population growth will come from immigration – nearly ten million people. But can these projections be trusted? Never mind how many people will live in Britain in seven years, we do not know how