Britain’s new Labour government will begin the process of reversing Brexit with a deal to partially restore the so-called Free Movement migration regime, with European Union (EU) citizens under 30 becoming free to work, study, and volunteer in the United Kingdom for up to three years. In practice, the Free Movement of Labor in the EU is not only for workers. For instance, judges ruled EU migrants could not be deported for turning up and becoming beggars.
“If we are serious about resetting relations with the EU, then we need to be prepared to give them some of the things that they want,” said a Labour government source. Britain has already repeatedly given way to EU demands on British payments into the EU budget, EU access to British fisheries, continued EU control over Northern Ireland, and more.
“We do not need to do anything,” gloated another EU source, saying they “see the current arrangements”—negotiated to the EU’s advantage, largely by anti-Brexit former prime minister Theresa May—as “quite satisfactory.”
“Our understanding is that it is the UK which wants to benefit from some closer relationships. Here we, as is standard with any trading partner, have some well-known offensive interests in terms of gaining in return,” they threatened. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, an anti-Brexit politician who lobbied for a redo of the first Brexit referendum, is unlikely to drive a hard bargain with the EU despite claiming he will not try to return Britain to the bloc’s control.
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