How Brexit would affect net migration to Britain

The Senior European Experts group is an independent body consisting of former high-ranking British diplomats and civil servants, including several former UK ambassadors to the EU, and former officials of the institutions of the EU.

In their new report, Immigration, the EU and Britain, they describe the implications of withdrawal from the EU as follows:

"If the UK votes to withdraw from the EU most of the drivers of net migration will not be affected. The handling of non-EU migrants and of asylum-seekers will remain, as now, a matter for Britain to decide. For Britain, like any country in Europe, the pressures will be unrelenting. And the success, or lack of it, of the EU Member States in managing immigration will have a major impact on us too. Leaving the EU will not reduce the attractiveness of the UK economy to economic migrants or to those seeking asylum. And the special arrangements at Calais for conducting border checks in France might well not survive a withdrawal. As for the handling of EU migrants, a rejection of the free movement of citizens would be likely to have a serious negative impact on the trade relationship we would hope to negotiate with the EU and on the treatment of the 2.2 million of our citizens living in other EU Member States."

Reproduced from https://view.publitas.com/british-influence/immigration-the-eu-and-britain/page/1 with the kind permission of British Influence and the Senior European Experts, ©Senior European Experts, February 2016