The UK has (and always has had) complete exemption from EU common immigration policy. The EU is not able to dictate immigration controls to the UK. If you have a problem with how the UK handles non-EU immigration then it is the fault of UK government policy, not the EU.
The complete exception from common immigration policy of the UK (along with Ireland and in some matters Denmark) is laid out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (2009).
EDIT: to clarify -- I am referring to non-EU immigration here, not freedom-of-movement for EU citizens.
The UK manages to both have influence over EU immigration policies AND also have exemption to it for non-EU immigration, AND can apply its own limitations even for when immigrants get citizenship for a limited period. Yet many brexiters spout on about how the EU just dictates everything to us and it's all out of our control. Absolute rubbish.
That's patently false. The EU doesn't prohibit (justified) immigration restrictions, and that sort of immigrant wave would be grounds for imposing restrictions.
You are also aware that the EU specifically allows to limit the freedom of movement on "grounds of public policy, public security or public health"?
You are also aware that the recent migrant crisis of the past few years has caused these kinds of barriers to be raised in response? Proving that such restrictions are not just mere hypotheticals?
The European Union is, after all, not a suicide compact.
For comparison, the impact of banning the printing presses only materialised quite a lot later than it happened. Remember that Europe used to be a lot of independent (and feuding) nations, rather than a union of any sort. There were unions of sorts under the Catholic and Orthodox churches, but England for instance was not part of those unions. it was in those times that Europe went through the scientific and industrial revolutions, while the empires I mentioned slowly stagnated.
British immigration policy is British immigration policy because as per European law it has mechanisms to prevent benefit immigration that is isn’t exercising
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:...
The fact is successive governments have rightly identified that both skilled and cheap labour from immigration is keeping our economy afloat. Otherwise we’d see them at least tap the brakes. But they haven’t.
OK, so a politician living a comfortable life thinks one thing. Individual voters thought something else.
I believe the document above refers to emergency powers to stop immigration control under limited conditions. It doesn't solve any long-term impacts that an experiment like "free movement" between 28 countries can have.
[edit]
I can see why certain things are more nuanced. Somebody mentioned that immigration from outside the EU into the EU, and then into the UK, has certain restrictions. These exemptions seem to be in place for the UK and Ireland and some other countries.
By TPM:
> It can get into 27 countries depending on their terms for immigration, but then cannot simply use free movement to move to the UK. This is incorrect. As a non-EU national, your rights in this regard are severely restricted. After five years in the EU, with a means of support, you are entitled to move freely within EU with the exception of some countries, notably the UK. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_resident_(European_U....
[edit 20:40]
My comment wasn't just its first paragraph though. There's the problem that monocultures (like in crop species) might be better in the short-term, but can create long-term risk (combine your strengths together on the one hand, but make the same mistakes and have all the same weaknesses). I gave the copyright example. It's a lot easier for the copyright lobby to take over one entity, the EU, than over 28 countries each with disconnected regulatory systems. Even regulatory treaties don't result in monoculture, because somebody can leave a treaty much more easily than they can leave a superstate like the EU.
The only problem in preventing illegal immigration since internal border checks are reduced, but UK cash have the border restored to higher scrutiny without running afoul of Schengen.
What the Brexit move actually does is prevent influx of Polish, Czech, Greek, Spanish, Italian etc. citizens into UK... Move of German immigrants into UK is almost certainly of no concern.
Although given the global inverse correlation between financial prosperity and birth rates, we’ll be back on our feet within a generation!
That inverse property doesn't seem to be holding up for Japan.
Which countries practice this?
EU nationals can even vote in municipal politics in their new place of residence even if they're not citizens of that country; another big argument of the opposing party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Single_Market#Free_mo...
1) You have a right to stay in another member state (host) for three months without any restrictions.
2) After three months, if you are not (self-)employed, restrictions can be placed on you. In particular, hosts will require you to prove sufficient resources to support yourself, including health insurance. If you are not employed and cannot prove sufficient means, you can be removed.
3) If you lose your job, you have a right to remain as a job seeker for six months. If you do not find a job within six months, you have to prove to the host that you are actively seeking a job, and that you have a realistic chance to get one. If you cannot prove that, you can be removed.
4) You get a right to permanent residence in the host after legally staying there for five years.
5) It is currently unclear if you have a right to the six months of job seeking before you've had an employment contract in the host state.
While I'm not a lawyer, I have used these rights myself three times now so I've read through them carefully as well as the local regulations in the countries I worked in.
[0]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/41/free-mo...
Non-EEA nationals who are here long term just pay a surcharge for the right to use the NHS, but that's not allowed by the EU rules. In fact, the European Commission's position is that since the NHS is free, this rule should be interpreted as allowing everyone who comes here from other EU states to use it for free even if they're not working and not paying into the NHS, and that this should fulfil the insurance requirement.
There was a bunch of press controversy over the UK enforcing the rule as written in some cases a year or so back too.
Moreover the migrant worker has to pay tax in the country they're living in, so tax statement may be good enough.
Most of EU has "single payer, free at point of use" healthcare rather than US model of insurance.
And if they're not working, they can be elected after three months. Is three months slip enough to even put a dent in NHS budget? I'd say not at all. It's not like people are migrating to UK to get temporarily better healthcare. (It sucks compared to almost every other EU country.)
Additionally, for temporary stays, UK can probably demand reimbursement from the member country of origin.
This only applies to workers, which roughly means that if they have a genuine job there. Historically, the UK has had more relaxed rules, I believe allowing pretty much indefinite leave to remain without work for EU citizens, but there is no requirement for the UK to allow that under the EU's "Freedom of movement".
Well, I was about to upvote you, because I thought it's unfair your reasonable comment is grayed out. Until I read this. Then I did the opposite.
Downvote complaints become self-fulfilling prophecies.
I take your point though. Not great style.
I'm torn on Brexit.
If Britain stays in the European Union, then it won't have a lot of power to manage her borders. The "liberalness" of Britain's immigration policy ends up being at minimum the liberalness of each of the other 27 EU countries. Germany could let in 1 million immigrants (good for them), all of them would get citizenship, all of them can go to the UK, the UK can't say to any of them "Hold on a minute. Are you even a fit?"
Also, this kind of unrestricted immigration is a historical anomaly. 100s of years ago, it took too long to travel from one place to another, and so people who lived far away were more different to each other. It's not clear whether throwing all the borders open will result in something stable that will last for centuries.
It's also a colossal experiment. If the experiment doesn't work out (see the above paragraph) then 28 countries pay the price. The UK will be deeply affected because it's an immigrant magnet, due to its high living standards, a lot of employment opportunities, and a widely spoken national language; something might happen to Romania and Poland, given that much of their population has apparently emigrated. If the experiment turns out bad, then multiply the impact by 28 for each of the 28 countries.
And there was a recent article on HN about an EU law that says newspaper headlines are going under copyright. Again, mistakes like this affect 500 million people (the citizens of the EU) and 28 different countries. This is a monoculture, which is bad in nature; why not in politics? The Ottoman monoculture might have been one of the things that set the Middle East / North Africa back. For instance, the Ottomans banned printing (in Arabic). How would that have been good for science? And China's another famous empire/union (monoculture), in which one emperor dissolved their fleet, which was the most advanced at the time, impacting their trade, and preventing them from settling elsewhere. How is a European, or even a globalised monoculture, any better?
On the other hand, I can see how the immediate economic impacts of Brexit might be bad.