EU citizens have rights to freedom of movement in other countries. This included the UK.

While on paper you are correct about the African migrants in reality people were rightly concerned that the will to enforce this was weak. The issues in the English Channel still show this problem exists. And Europe continues to show little desire to actually take action in this problem and so we are seeing similar sentiments arise in Italy as lead to Brexit.

Imho the real blame for Brexit lies at the feet of Angela Merkel. Brexit would never have happened if she hadn't opened the borders in the Syrian refugee crisis. While this was a very open-hearted and kind gesture, as a geopolitical action it was disastrous.

Would the Syrian refugee crisis have been as bad if Britain hadn't hopped in with the US to destabilize the area? You could easily lay that blame on George Bush more than anyone else

Right, and not only Britain. How many Syrian refugees did Russia admit?

Pretty sure civilians flee war wether or not the West gets involved.

> While on paper you are correct about the African migrants in reality people were rightly concerned that the will to enforce this was weak.

I feel like I am still missing the legal context on how Brexit solves such an issue.

You mention issues in the English Channel still exist; just last week there were reports on how there are thousands of Albanians (similarly non-EU citizens) who migrated to the UK illegally. But this is post-Brexit, which sort of indicates that Brexit has not solved the border issues.

I can see the argument that Brexit reduces migration from EU nationals (whether that is a good or bad thing is another question), but I have yet to see any indication that it changed non-EU migration in any way.