The UK Border at Heathrow Airport. dannyman/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by)
Theresa May’s announcement that the UK will be leaving the single market marks the first indication of the ‘hard’ Brexit to come. While some aspects of what to expect are finally clearer, the future of the Brexit bogeyman – labour migration – remains elusive. On the one hand, the government is promising to categorically restrict immigration, and on the other to become a deregulated economic powerhouse and a "magnet for international talent". Pledging both so strongly is unwise and more than a little contradictory, and ultimately Theresa May’s anti-immigration agenda could hamper productivity, fiscal health, trade and long-term growth.
Recent research from the National Institute of Social and Economic Research (NIESR) predicted that halving or ending EU free movement – in very stylised terms choosing a ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ Brexit – could cut GDP by 5.2% and 8.2% by 2030 respectively. Despite such calls for caution, the immigration debate continues to rage largely without informed economic argument. Instead, it has swung from the unrealistic – spreading the fiction that single market access and freedom of movement are divisible freedoms, officially settled this week – to the irrelevant, such as pretending that a benefits freeze for EU migrants would be economically significant.
