Gareth Davies on "Could It All Have Been Avoided? Brexit and Treaty-Permitted Restrictions on Movement of Workers"

Network member Gareth Davies (VU Amsterdam) has alerted us to a new blog post entitled "Could It All Have Been Avoided? Brexit and Treaty-Permitted Restrictions on Movement of Workers," which recently appeared on the European Law Blog. The opening paragraphs are below and the remainder can be read here.

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Of course, it wasn’t all about immigration. But that claimed flood of Eastern Europeans was certainly at the heart of the leave campaign, and, unusually for an immigration debate, it was their right to work in the UK that was the political issue: there were too many of them, they were pushing down wages, they were keeping the low-skilled native out of work, they were costing the government a fortune in in-work benefits, they were making towns and villages unrecognisable and alienating the more established inhabitants.

Whether or not they were true, a lot of these claims seemed to be shared by both sides. Cameron didn’t so much deny them, as offer counter-claims (but they do add to the economy) and promises of change (if you vote remain, we’ll have a new deal and be able to do something about it!).

So the question is this: if the government thought that free movement of workers was causing such terrible problems, why didn’t it impose restrictions years ago when the post-Enlargement flood was at its high point and the issue first became prominent? [continue reading here]