No. of Recommendations: 3
> My impression is that they were looking for the freedom to limit immigration
The UK already had the ability to limit immigration as an EU member.
In fact, this is what most other EU countries chose to do but the UK purposefully chose NOT to do.
1)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul..."But the biggest deception is this: we could easily have taken back control of our borders already under European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/38/EC, which allows EU member states to repatriate EU nationals after three months if they have not found a job or do not have the means to support themselves."
2)
https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/publica...When the EU expanded, "The UK... was one of just three EU countries not to impose transitional restrictions on migrants from the member-states that joined in that year (the so-called A8)."
3)
https://www.bruegel.org/blog-post/questionable-imm..."By respecting all EU rules, net immigration of non-British citizens to the UK could have been cut by a stunning 82% in 2004-11 and also rather significantly since then. It was a UK decision not to control immigration."
(I recommend reading that whole post at the bruegel URL)
All of which has been known for many, many years.
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If anything, the UK has lost some control of immigration because it no longer has the ability to share any surge of refugees to EU countries within EU refugee management schemes.
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The idea that Brexit had anything whatsoever to do with immigration or economics is a sad joke. Under both Labour and the Conservatives the UK has had *extremely* pro-immigration policies by its own choice. The UK has been absurdly pro-immigration by the standards of any EU country for at least 20 years until today.
Brexit was, is, and has always been about managing internal party conflict within the Conservative party. It's a political infight among a few hundred MPs that spilled out catastrophically onto the country. David Cameron used a public vote to try and bring (approximately) 1/3 of his MPs into line on his viewpoint and solidify his control over his party. It catastrophically failed, and when it became clear what he'd achieved with his hubris, he immediately ran away from his role as PM and dumped the problem he had created onto everyone else to solve. He did not foresee that it was even possible the public might 'vote the most ridiculous way', and thus there was no plan whatsoever for what Brexit actually meant, were it voted for. Realising this opportunity, the 1/3 of anti-EU MPs proceeded to define the meaning of 'Leave' *after* the vote took place, and used 'delivering the result is about upholding democracy!' as a wedge issue to force pro-EU Conservatives out of the party.
Famously, there was a series of votes over 2 days in parliament held in 2019 - (note! 3 years after the referendum) - to try and figure out 'what the heck IS brexit?'.
Take a look - Brexit was a completely meaningless term even 3 years after the vote! It's unfathomable. They voted among 8 alternatives from an initial choice of (I think) 80 options to try and figure out what Brexit might be.
4)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/01/b...----------
Prior to Brexit, only a small fraction of the UK thought immigration was even an issue worth caring about.
5)
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/br...You can see that even by 2009-2013, only around 20% of the UK saw immigration as a salient issue, despite being continually presented with anti-immigrant hype across the right-wing and tabloid media. In fact, before the UK's right wing tabloids took it up as a theme,
"In 1994, which was the starting point of this data series, less than 5% of respondents thought of immigration as a concern, and it remained rarely mentioned prior to 2000. "
Even today, generally, only a minority of the UK public have negative views about the effects of immigration.
6)
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/...----------
Finally I note that since Brexit there appears to have been no attempt to limit overall immigration. The Conservatives have been in power for 13 years now and have had large majorities for most of that time. If they had any desire to curtail immigration, they had absolute authority and power to do so. They chose not to. Talk of immigration control etc. and demonisation of immigrants is literally nothing more than an emotional tool used to manipulate the most right-wing voters in the UK to obtain their votes.
I suppose it's a little bit like how abortion is used in the USA, a wedge issue that gets a huge amount of time in national political debate, because it is powerfully used to trigger a particular set of voters to vote a particular way, if you show them the right images and headlines at the right time.
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And here's the proof: Britain, with total control over immigration, chooses not to reduce it.
7)
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/the-brexit-effect..."The Brexit effect Leavers didn't expect: A rise in immigration"
"By ending the free movement of people between the UK and Europe, Britain has unexpectedly created a record flow of migrant workers from lower-income countries.... If that was their aim, Brexit failed them. Six years on, a record number of migrants is flowing into Britain ' and the biggest group is from India. "
lux
