EU: Brexit to blame for Britain's migrant crisis
Brexit was the main driver of Britain's worsening migration crisis, an official European Union research document has claimed.
The study insists that remaining in the bloc would have helped UK governments tackle the influx of arrivals on small boats from the Continent.
The Brussels paper claims the post-Brexit 'liberalisation of migration laws' caused a record increase in net-migration figures from 248,000 at the time of the 2016 EU referendum to 906,000 seven years later.
'Despite concerns about migration prompting many British citizens to vote in favour of the UK's withdrawal from the EU in the Brexit referendum in June 2016, the country has paradoxically attracted significantly more migrants since leaving,' the paper's authors wrote.
The EU research paper, entitled 'The Brexit paradox: How leaving the EU led to more migration', was drawn up by the member's research service of the European parliament this month.
It was produced for MEPs to inform them about the UK's migration problem ahead of future post-Brexit discussions and represents some of the strongest language from Brussels on the issue.
The paper compared Brexit to the 2004 enlargement of the EU, when Sir Tony Blair's New Labour government opted not to put restrictions on the arrivals from the bloc's 10 incoming countries.
'This is not the first time that decisions by the UK government have led to a major increase in net migration. When 10 countries joined the EU, the UK government decided, unlike most EU countries, not to impose any restrictions, which resulted in a greater than expected influx of migrants,' it said.
Representatives of the EU's only elected institution have often gone to great lengths to paint Britons' Brexit decision in a bad light.
Research projects like this one are normally commissioned by individual MEPs or their offices. But it appears this paper was produced at the initiative of the EU parliament's research service.
The main thrust of the paper's argument is that a decline in the number of EU migrants to Britain was offset by a significantly larger influx of non-EU immigrants.
The paper cited the former Conservative government's policies which threw open the door to the arrivals of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, Hong Kongers and foreign students.
But it also said the number of small-boat crossings had dramatically increased in the years following the UK's departure from the EU and the end of the transitional period in January 2021.
'There has been a notable shift in the composition of these migrants in terms of age and nationality. Prior to 2016, most migrants came from the EU, but now most come from outside the EU,' the research claimed.
'It could be argued that leaving the EU has limited the UK's ability to tackle irregular migration, as it is no longer able to send migrants back to the EU country where they first arrived,' it added.
The EU's Dublin agreement once enabled the UK to return migrants to the bloc if it was shown they had travelled through another European country and failed to claim asylum there. Southern member states, such as Spain and Greece, have consistently rejected the possibility of a replacement being negotiated.
However, Sir Keir is in talks over an individual 'one in, one out' migration deal with France.
The scheme could allow the UK to send back channel migrants within weeks in exchange for the UK taking asylum seekers from France.
Using figures previously published by the Home Office, the paper claims that 93 per cent of small-boat arrivals between 2018 and March 2024 had applied for asylum.
'About three quarters were successful in their asylum bid,' it added.
In 2018, there were just 299 reports of illegal Channel crossings, according to EU research.
This number shot up to a peak of 45,744 in 2022, the year after Britain quit the bloc's Single Market and its migration policies.
While discussing the spiralling illegal migration figures, the research claims that Britain has become a less attractive place for EU citizens to live after Brexit.
It blames new rules making it harder for people from the bloc to live and work in the UK.
UK and EU to work closer on migration
After the end of freedom of movement, there were labour shortages in Britain. The then-Tory government offered non-EU Albanians work picking fruit and vegetables after numbers of EU seasonal workers fell after Brexit.
EU citizens make up 70 per cent of abattoir staff in the UK and the industry is struggling to recruit domestically as it endures a labour shortage.
Most migrant workers are brought in to work in skilled, specialised roles in the abattoir and boning halls. Those jobs are the hardest to recruit British workers for.
'Another factor could be the drop in the value of the pound, meaning that money earned in the UK would be worth less,' the report said.
Britain and the EU have agreed to work more closely together on tackling illegal migration as part of the Prime Minister's post-Brexit reset.
The deal signed by Sir Keir and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission's president, paved the way for more intelligence sharing to crack down on people smugglers.
But the pact contained no detailed provisions that would allow the UK to send would-be asylum seekers arriving illegally in the country back to the EU.
The only concrete initiatives signed were for the creation of a new UK-EU 'youth experience' scheme, making it easier for young people to live and work in both territories, as well as a return to the bloc's Erasmus university exchange programme.
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