The absence of an outline of a post-exit immigration regime is a serious gap in the Referendum debate. That need not be so. There is a fairly clear way ahead: to minimise disruption, while achieving control of numbers. The key element that needs to be controlled is migration for work (which accounts for the bulk of net EU migration). This could be sharply reduced if EU immigrants were subject to the same requirement for work permits as now currently apply to non-EU workers: the aim would be to reduce the overall scale of immigration without losing the economic benefit of highly skilled immigration.
By doing this, net migration – 330,000 last year – could be cut by about 100,000 per year. Tourism would not suffer: obviously, there would be no need to require tourist visas for EU citizens any more than we do for Americans now.
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