Before people get over-excited by what @RachelReevesMP says here, worth a pause for reflection. telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/…
“Free movement of people” is a creation of EU law: part of the single market. It only has meaning as part of the EU or EEA.
But plenty of neighbouring states have agreements allowing wide mobility outside that EU law framework. Very close to home: Ireland and the U.K. Further away: Australia and NZ. And other examples of states allowing wide mobility between them.
The EU demonstrated at various points during the Brexit negotiations that it was open to a chapter on mobility, covering eg short term working and students. And it may have gone further if the UK had been interested.
But the Conservative governments of May and Johnson just weren’t interested: the dogma of “ending free movement” trumped arrangements that would have benefited many Brits.
What matters isn’t the label “free movement” (which isn’t apposite anyway): rather, it is what sort of improved mobility arrangements Labour wants to aim for in 2023/4. There’s a lot of scope for improvement, in that respect, on the current government’s TCA.
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