I don't know if you're aware, but the UK CAN control immigration, but have chosen NOT to exercise their right to do so. What people – even, seemingly, the government – did not realise is that, since 2006, the Free Movement Directive (to give it its formal title, EU Directive 2004/38/EC) has given us exactly the control over immigration that voters demanded.
Why did Cameron never talk about this during the referendum campaign? Voters were unaware of so much about our relationship with the EU prior to and during the campaign, much of which remained unanswered until long afterwards. The Free Movement Directive is just one of many of these little known factors that mean we need to raise the level of discussion and offer the British people a final say on Brexit.
Where admission is permitted, an EU citizen may remain in the UK for up to three months from the date of entry, provided they do not become a burden on the social assistance system of the UK. If an EU citizen does not meet one of the requirements for residence set out in the Directive (employed, self-employed, self-sufficient, student) then they will not have a right to reside in the UK and may be removed.
The UK is free to implement this policy as it sees fit, and yet it does not, while other countries including Belgium and Italy, use this legislation to repatriate thousands of EU migrants each year. If the British public knew that we do have control of our borders even inside the single market, the fear of uncontrolled EU immigration would be dispelled. The fact is that EU migration is not unrestricted, and EU migrants are not permitted to burden the state by claiming their Treaty rights.
Each EU migrant, on average, contributes £2300 more to the exchequer than the average British-born adult, supporting not just themselves but others who rely on the NHS and the UK welfare system. We rely on EU immigration not just for low-skilled workers but across the whole spectrum, from hospitality and construction to financial services and academia – where up to 20 percent of academics at our Russell Group universities are from the EU.
Unemployment is at its lowest rate for decades at 4%, almost 3% lower than the EU average and less than half the EEA average. Without EU migration we will have an acute labour shortage. EU migration has been made a scapegoat for problems in the British economy, entirely unfairly. We should be grateful for it as espoused by a Lincolnshire Leave voting farmer, who after the 2016 referendum didn't have enough UK labour to pick fruit on his farm, so is now a remainer who is still struggling for seasonal farm labour from the UK & the EU through the effects of the referendum.
We should also be grateful for the powers the EU grants us to control it. When Leave campaigners shout ‘Take back control!!!!’, they seem to miss the fact that the Free Movement Directive gives us this control. Thanks to our government’s refusal to acknowledge the nuances of EU immigration legislation, the EU has become a Brexiteer scapegoat for uncontrolled migration, when in fact the fault lies with the very same Tory Party bleating on about leaving the EU without a deal.