Answer: Not until the end of the transition period. Which will be 4 years.
Lord knows why the WA keeps coming back from the dead, but it looks like May might open the coffin and raise up it’s rotten corpse for a 4th time. So it’s worth considering another one of the “Red Lines” – when would we be able to turn down the tap a bit on EU migration?
Excerpted from the WA and simplified:
“Union citizens who exercised their right to reside in the United Kingdom in accordance with Union law before the end of the transition period…and …family members of the persons referred to…shall retain their right of residence…”
Which makes sense in the context of the Transition being some of the benefits and absolutely all of the costs of EU membership. Transition being initially until the end of 2020 plus that 2 year extension which will happen, thus taking us to end 2022.
So around about Jan 2023 we can think about maybe starting to control EU migration. Provided we don’t sign up to some sort of collaboration in the mean time – like a single market.
It’s not Ronseal, is it?
You might consider the authors of the WA as not really getting the objectives of Brexit:
We also wont be able do trade deals
And it will cost closer to £75bn
Bedtime Reading:
WA Title I Articles 9 on
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New EU immigration is already being controlled - since June 2016 we've had a two child rule on new benefit claims. This affects UK families too, but those most affected are often the sort of families that would not have been thought of as UK families when we starved our own before deciding to repeal the Corn Laws.
What are the odds of Labour and Conservative MPs allying to vote through the WA/Treaty, driven by fear of the Sword of Damocles that the Brexit Party wield? Less than a month to spike Mr. Farage and co's guns.