Travelling without a visa is not freedom of movement. That's visa waiver.

Completely false. EU citizens do not enter the UK on a visa waiver. They enter exactly the same way as British citizens. (i.e., show your passport, go through with no questions). A US citizen enters the UK on a visa waiver. The duration of their stay is limited, and there are limits on what they may do while they are in the UK (most importantly, no working).

Please, after all the lies of the leave campaign, can we stop casually spreading utterly false information?

The thing is, even "informed beleavers" don't know they are spreading misinformation. A lot of them have no idea what they're talking about. Most of them don't even know the EU of 2016 is different from the EU of 2008.

Ignorance is a terrible, terrible thing.

> Completely false. EU citizens do not enter the UK on a visa waiver.

That is literally what i was saying.

i'm confused. I can go from Copenhagen to Stockholm to Helsinki to Berlin to Paris to Brussels without once being asked to show ID but the moment I tried to go the UK I had to show ID. Not having to show ID = freedom of movement. Having to show ID = a chance to reject your movement = not free

Fly between Berlin and Paris, and your luggage and ID will be checked at the airport multiple times. Not because you're not free to move, but to check you and your luggage for security concerns, and sometimes even precisely to check if you're free to move (e.g. flying from the US to Germany as a European, how does one know you're not a Nigerian who has a tourist visa to enter the US, but no visa to enter Germany, rather than a German returning home from the US? By checking your ID)

Having to show ID or getting inspected doesn't violate the notion of free movement in the way that this term is used.

It's just that it's not commonly done in most modes of transport between most borders, e.g. cars between the Netherlands and Germany. But the UK is not alone in this, take the eurolines like I have half a dozen times (a bus network commonly used by poorer people, including poor immigrants) from e.g. the Netherlands to France and you're guaranteed to run into checkpoints. And if you've got the right ID for which there is freedom of movement, you're free to move.

"Freedom of Movement" in EU context does not mean "I can travel without border checkpoints". It means that you have to right to travel to, to work and to stay in all EU member countries. Yes, the UK checks your passport and luggage when entering the country, that doesn't mean that they can deny those rights from you if you are an EU citizen.