1/‘Why should EU nationals get priority over people from other countries -like America or India?’ People still ask.
Because they got it ‘in return’ for something: ‘our’ right of free movement to 27 other EU countries. Brexiters might not care, but this was a ‘huge’ bonus for us
2/ EU free movement meant I could pack my bags & go study in Paris, then return - a French & UK qualified lawyer - and work there. When I fancied a career/country change, I just moved to Brussels: €800 pm salary? Sure, no problem said Belgium. No ‘minimum’ salary’ requirements
3/ The freedom that EU free movement gave me changed my life, and what I could ‘give back’ to my UK. Apart from skills, and taxes, that includes a handsome Belgian husband who supports his UK family of five and happily pays £££ in taxes into UK coffers.
4/ Even if we completely ignore facts - that, as @MigObs has proved, EU migrants contribute far more than they take out - & treat ‘free’ movement of EU nationals to the UK as a burden: what a tiny price to pay for how much it has benefitted UK citizens - and so the UK as a whole
5/ This level of free movement can only work as part of a single market ‘package’ which breaks down barriers to the other things that need to go with it for it to work -like free movement of capital, services & goods: no point my going to France if I couldn’t practice there.
6/ We had this single market. It took ‘decades’ to break down all those barriers but the UK - represented by Thatcher’s Lord Cockfield - fought hard for, and eventually obtained, it. Any challenges were ironed out over another 30+ years.
7/This level of free movement can’t be recreated outside the EU -through, say, a comprehensive trade deal -without a new single market. So if Brexiters wanted USA-UK free movement: this would, again, take ‘many’ years, possibly decades, to negotiate, just as it did within the EU
8/ So I am in mourning, I suppose, for the loss of EU free movement: something which took decades to achieve, more decades to perfect, and which we gave up - overnight - because we ignored the facts: overall, it was a huge £££ asset. But, as @BorisJohnson said, ‘f*ck business’.
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