Immigration, free movement and the EU referendum

2016 ◽  
Vol 236 ◽  
pp. 14-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Portes

Immigration and free movement are central issues in the UK's referendum on EU membership. Although free movement was a founding principle of the EU, it only became of central economic and political importance after the expansion of the EU eastward in 2004. For the UK, the economic impacts of recent EU migration appear to have been relatively benign, even for the low paid and low skilled. The UK's recent ‘renegotiation’, which focused on the largely irrelevant issue of ‘benefit tourism’, will make little difference. A vote to Leave, however, will potentially take us into new territory for UK immigration policy,

Subject The government's preferred timetable for the UK referendum on EU membership. Significance The EU membership referendum will be a major event in both EU and UK political and commercial life. Prime Minister David Cameron's official position is that the poll could take place any time before end-2017. He is less concerned about the likely outcome of the referendum, which he is confident will produce an 'in' result, than about achieving a margin in favour of membership that decisively settles the question and minimises the damage to the Conservative Party arising from the process. Impacts The most likely referendum date is September 15, 2016. This timetable would make the key renegotiation period the first half of 2016, when the sympathetic Dutch government chairs the EU Council. The German government would also prefer the UK referendum to be dealt with relatively quickly.


Author(s):  
David Denver ◽  
Mark Garnett

This book provides a concise account of general elections during more than five tumultuous decades in British politics. Beginning in 1964, when partisan allegiances in the UK were relatively stable, it ends in 2019 when the volatility of voters was illustrated by the success of Conservative Party candidates in constituencies which had previously been ‘safe’ for Labour. The book describes the changing influences on voting behaviour—from the early 1960s, when allegiances were largely based on social class, to the 2020s when factors such as impressions of party leaders and new media outlets such as Facebook seem far more important. The electoral contests of these years produced dramatic results, ranging from Labour’s landslide victory in 1997 to the three closely fought battles of 2010, 2015, and 2017. These elections have taken place against a background of concern arising from the low turnout of voters, reaching its nadir in 2001 when less than 60 per cent of the electorate participated. Yet, in recent years, competition for the support of volatile voters has been complicated by issues like devolution to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland—not to mention the question of EU membership, which cut across long-established party lines and has helped to raise political passions to unprecedented levels. Apart from its analysis of electoral campaigns and outcomes, the book describes the most relevant developments between elections (including the EU referendum of 2016) which help to explain the dilemmas facing the system of liberal democracy in contemporary Britain.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ebtisam Saleh Aluthman

This paper presents a critical account of the representation of immigration in the Brexit corpus—a collective corpus of 108,452,923 words compiled mostly from blogs, tweets, and daily news related to Brexit debate. The study follows the methodological synergy approach proposed by Baker et al. (2008), a heuristic methodological approach that combines methods of discourse analysis and corpus-assisted statistical tools including keyword, collocation, and concordance analysis. Drawing on this methodological synergy approach, the investigation yields significant findings contextualized within the socio-economic-political context of the European Union (EU) leave referendum to trace how the issue of immigration is represented in the discourses of the Remain and Leave campaigns. The frequency results show that immigration is one of the most salient topics in the Brexit corpus. Concordance analysis of the word immigrants and collocation investigation of the word immigration reveal opposing attitudes toward immigration in the EU referendum debate. The analysis uncovers negative attitudes toward the uncontrolled flow of immigrants from other EU countries and public concerns about immigrants' negative impacts on wages, education, and health services. Other findings reveal positive attitudes toward immigrants emphasizing their positive contributions to the UK economy. The study concludes with an argument of the significant association between the political and socio-economic ideologies of a particular society and the language communicated in its media.


Author(s):  
Federico Fabbrini

This chapter analyses the European Union during Brexit, explaining how the EU institutions and Member States reacted to the UK’s decision to leave the EU. It outlines how they went about this in the course of the withdrawal negotiations. The EU institutions and Member States managed to adopt a very united stance vis-à-vis a withdrawing state, establishing effective institutional mechanisms and succeeding in imposing their strategic preferences in the negotiations with the UK. Nevertheless, the EU was also absorbed during Brexit by internal preparations to face both the scenario of a ‘hard Brexit’—the UK leaving the EU with no deal—and of a ‘no Brexit’—with the UK subsequently delaying exit and extending its EU membership. Finally, during Brexit the EU increasingly started working as a union of 27 Member States—the EU27—which in this format opened a debate on the future of Europe and developed new policy initiatives, especially in the field of defence and military cooperation.


Public Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 355-396
Author(s):  
Mark Elliott ◽  
Robert Thomas

This chapter focuses on the constitutional implications of the UK’s membership of the European Union and the constitutional implications of its exit from the EU (or ‘Brexit’). The chapter examines how EU law was accommodated within the UK legal system during the period of the UK’s membership of the EU, and in particular considers the consequences of the primacy of EU law for the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. The chapter also considers the extent to which lessons learned about the UK constitution as a result of EU membership will remain relevant now that the UK has left the EU.


EU Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 809-860
Author(s):  
Paul Craig ◽  
Gráinne de Búrca

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. The free movement of workers is of central importance to the EU, in both economic and social terms. This is reflected in the legislation that fleshes out the basic rights contained in Article 45 and in the European Court of Justice’s consistently purposive interpretation of the Treaty Articles and legislation to achieve the EU’s objectives in this area. This chapter considers several central legal issues that arise in the context of the free movement of workers. These include the scope of Article 45, the meaning accorded to ‘worker’, the rights of intermediate categories such as ‘job-seeker’, the kinds of restrictions that states may justifiably impose on workers and their families; and the rights which family members enjoy under EU law. The UK version contains a further section analysing issues concerning free movement of workers between the EU and the UK post-Brexit.


EU Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 781-831
Author(s):  
Paul Craig ◽  
Gráinne de Búrca

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. The free movement of workers is of central importance to the EU, in both economic and social terms. This is reflected in the legislation that fleshes out the basic rights contained in Article 45 and in the European Court of Justice’s consistently purposive interpretation of the Treaty Articles and legislation to achieve the EU’s objectives in this area. This chapter considers several central legal issues that arise in the context of the free movement of workers. These include the scope of Article 45, the meaning accorded to ‘worker’, the rights of intermediate categories such as ‘job-seeker’, the kinds of restrictions that states may justifiably impose on workers and their families; and the rights which family members enjoy under EU law. The UK version contains a further section analysing issues concerning free movement of workers between the EU and the UK post-Brexit.


2020 ◽  
pp. 294-322
Author(s):  
Sylvia de Mars

This chapter explores the free movement of goods, which lies at the very heart of the internal market. The idea of the free movement of goods was the starting point that the EEC Treaty aimed for, and remains one of the greatest achievements of the EU to date. However, as with everything in EU law, there are a lot of legal rules underpinning a fairly straightforward concept. The Treaty contains two separate sets of provisions that address matters of taxation when it comes to trade in products. The first relates to border taxation, while the second relates to internal taxation. With regard to non-taxation issues, the primary issue is quantitative restrictions: situations where a Member State either blocks a specific volume of products from entering its market, or outlaws/bans a product altogether. The chapter then considers the exceptions to free movement of goods, and assesses how Brexit may impact on the free movement of goods between the UK and the EU.


Subject The package of reforms on a new EU-UK relationship. Significance The agreement between the United Kingdom and its EU partners sets the stage for the UK referendum on EU membership, which Prime Minister David Cameron has set for June 23. Cameron said he had negotiated new terms that would allow the United Kingdom to remain in the EU. Impacts The deal bolsters the campaign to remain in the EU, but the referendum outcome is still highly uncertain. The deal will only come into effect if the outcome is for remaining, forestalling a second referendum for better terms. If the outcome is for leaving, a new relationship with the EU would have to be negotiated during a two-year transition period. It would also probably lead to a second Scottish independence referendum and UK break-up.


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