Brexit and Free Movement of People

The UK has made Control of Free Movement of People a key objective for a new UK-EU trade agreement.

The current indications are that the UK will seek to access and operate within the Single Market, while controlling free movement of people and refusing to apply all Single Market regulations or accepting the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice.

The EU meanwhile will not grant full access to the Single Market without the application of the four fundamental freedoms of the Treaty of Rome. This will make it more likely that the future UK-EU trade relationship will be either a more limited bilateral free trade agreement or trade based on WTO tariffs.

In this new paper, Blair Horan, Former General Secretary of CPSU and member of the IIEA’s UK working group, argues that this outcome would present significant challenges for the Irish Government in respect of North/South relations, the maintenance of the Common Travel Area and free movement for Irish and British citizens on the two islands.