MW298 : Family Permits for EU citizens in Britain | Migration Watch UK

Summary 1. Recent reforms to family migration for British citizens are undermined by EU law that allows EU citizens living in the UK to bypass British Immigration Rules and bring in their non-EU partners and family members with no salary or other conditions. They gain immediate and full access to benefits. 20,000 took advantage of […]

MW296 : The British in Europe | Migration Watch UK

Summary 1. Claims that some two million British people are working in other EU states[1] are simply wrong. The number of British workers in the other countries of the European Union, about 407,000[2], is less than one third of the 1.4 million workers from another EU country in the UK. The number of British residents in […]

MW289 : EU Nationals and access to the British Welfare State | Migration Watch UK

Summary 1. Access to the UK benefit system is primarily based on residence. An EU national who moves to the UK and is considered habitually resident has the same entitlement to benefits as a UK national regardless of their previous tax or National Insurance contributions. Habitual Residence is automatic in the case of workers and […]

MW288 : UK Child Benefit and non-UK resident EU children | Migration Watch UK

Summary 1 The UK pays child benefit and child tax credits to almost 50,000 children who live in another EU country. The most common country of residence is Poland, where claims are made for almost 30,000 children. British rates are about four times those in Poland. The cost to the British taxpayer is just over […]

Immigration from Romania and Bulgaria | Migration Watch UK

Immigration from Romania and Bulgaria could amount to 50,000 a year in the first five years.  That is the conclusion of a study issued by Migration Watch UK today.  250,000 is the population of a city of the size of Plymouth or Newcastle.  That number could be considerably higher if there were to be a movement […]

MW231 : The European Convention on Human Rights | Migration Watch UK

1 A recent report by Civitas, otherwise the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, under the title of “Strasbourg in the Dock: Prisoner voting, human rights and the case for democracy” has trenchantly analysed some of the current problems with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and in particular with the functioning of the Court […]

European Asylum and Immigration Policy

Developments in 2010 Executive Summary 1. The most important recent development in relation to the long-term future of EU asylum and immigration policy took place on 1st December 2009, when the Lisbon European Reform Treaty (now renamed the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union or TFEU) entered into force. The TFEU fully preserves […]