Raising the drawbridge

HOSTILITY to immigration was a key driver of Britons' vote on June 23rd to leave the EU. Theresa May has duly said that freedom of movement from the EU cannot continue as before. Yet curbing migration will be both tricky and costly.It is numbers that cause the most trouble. In both 2010 and 2015 the Tories said they would cut annual net immigration to the tens of thousands. Yet the figure for 2015, published before the referendum, was 333,000, almost half of it from the EU. Such high EU immigration is relatively new, caused in large part by the accession of ten eastern European countries in 2004 and 2007 (see chart). Figures released on August 25th showed that net immigration in the year to March was still running near record levels.One issue is what to do about 3.5m existing EU migrants. British Future, a think-tank, finds that 84% of Britons want them to stay, yet the government remains wary of...Continue reading
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