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Analysis

Free Movement: Britain's Burning EU debate

Analysis

BBC

Government, Politics, News

4.61K Ratings

🗓️ 20 July 2015

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Freedom of movement will be a key battleground in Britain's crucial EU debate. It gives EU citizens the right to live and work anywhere in the union and is praised by supporters as boosting prosperity. But critics say it has created unsustainable waves of mass migration and must be restricted. So where does this policy actually come from, and what does it mean in practice? Sonia Sodha discovers why it has become such a crucial issue, and what's at stake as Britain decides its European future.

Producer: Chris Bowlby Editor: Hugh Levinson

(Photo credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0

Thank you for downloading this program from the BBC.

0:03.0

In this week's analysis,

0:05.0

Sonia Soda explores a key factor in Britain's fraught relationship with Europe,

0:10.0

Freedom of Movement.

0:19.0

It's a busy Friday evening here at Victoria Coach Station in the centre of London. There are coaches arriving and departing from across the UK.

0:23.4

But I'm standing here in front of the Euroline's check-in desk,

0:26.3

and it looks like there are coaches about to depart for Frankfurt and Amsterdam.

0:31.0

This is also the bit of the coach station where coaches come in from and go back to countries

0:36.0

like Poland and the Czech Republic.

0:38.0

I go to my country, I holiday.

0:42.0

I come in here for a job, 2005-6 I go work in Bradford, Harmmark, a big factory. I like this

0:49.3

people. Too much food, too much food, my country, too much money, money, too much money, too much money.

0:54.0

Too much expensive.

0:56.0

But will we still be seeing as many people like this,

0:59.0

arriving here from Europe in a decade's time?

1:01.0

Under pressure from negative public attitudes towards migration and the

1:05.7

impact people perceive it's had on jobs and local services, Prime Minister David Cameron

1:10.7

wants to permanently reduce the number of immigrants coming to Britain from the rest of the EU.

1:17.0

He said that for him this issue is critical as to whether or not Britain should remain a member

1:21.9

of the European Union. Many in Europe see

1:25.6

this is striking a dagger at the very heart of the European project.

1:30.3

There are a set of things which from the EU but also the Spanish perspectives are really unacceptable of what Cameron is asking for because they would effectively mean the end of the EU.

...

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