The report notes that reducing EU migration after Brexit is a key government objective. However, deciding how and where to achieve such reductions is not a simple statistical exercise but involves a series of subjective, political decisions. Some industries and businesses will see bigger impacts than others, and deciding which ones should be allowed to bring in migrant workers could be a contentious process.

Perhaps the single biggest question about migration policy after Brexit is how much—if any—of the demand for low- and middle-skilled workers the Government will satisfy, the report argues. The Government has indicated that high-skilled EU workers are not likely to be the main target of measures to reduce migration after Brexit.

The report notes that the Government faces a choice between implementing a tailored migration system which is responsive to differing policy goals (such as supporting specific industries like agriculture or reducing the cost of social care) and a simpler set of rules that can be applied more uniformly across all industries. There are pros and cons to each approach: a tailored system enables the government to put immigration policy at the service of other government objectives like industrial strategy or supporting public services, but is also more complex and harder to implement.

Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory and author of the report, said: “There’s no single, objective metric to decide which industries should continue to receive new migrant workers after Brexit. The Government will need to juggle several different objectives, like the desire to reduce migration, support particular sectors, or to negotiate a new relationship with the European Union. Some of these objectives will inevitably conflict, so the challenge will be deciding how to prioritise them. Ultimately, a fair amount of political judgment will be needed.”

The Inquiry panel included voices from Leave and Remain, different political parties and from business and trade unions and was chaired by Gisela Stuart MP, former Chair of the Vote Leave campaign. Its remit was to examine how the Government can protect the rights of the 3 million EU citizens living in the UK after Brexit and to make practical recommendations as to how to do this, starting from the premise that this is the right thing to do.

The Inquiry’s report also recommends major changes to the application process for Permanent Residence which, it says, is onerous for the applicant and risks overwhelming the Home Office with one of the biggest single administrative tasks it has ever undertaken. For the two-thirds of EU nationals (up to 2 million people) who have already been in the UK for five years, the Inquiry proposes a streamlined system using Local Authorities’ Nationality Checking Services, which already helps people with the paperwork for citizenship applications. It would also to cap the costs so those affected can secure status with minimum of expense.

Reform of this system is essential, the report suggests: at the 2015 rate of processing it would take 150 years to process the applications of all EU nationals currently in the UK. The Inquiry suggests checking these applications more efficiently using existing Government records held by HMRC, the DWP and the Ministry of Justice. The remaining cases would be processed by a dedicated team at the Home Office.

ICM research for British Future finds that 84% of the British public supports letting EU migrants stay – including three-quarters (77%) of Leave voters – with any future changes to freedom of movement applying only to new migrants.

The full Inquiry panel comprises: Gisela Stuart MP (Chair); Suella Fernandes MP; Kate Green MP; Suzanne Evans, UKIP Deputy Chair; Fraser Nelson, Editor of the Spectator; Seamus Nevin of the Institute of Directors; Owen Tudor of the TUC; Professor Steve Peers, University of Essex; and Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future.

With more than 3 million EU migrants currently living in the UK, the Government faces an immense administrative exercise in securing their residence rights, according to a new report published today by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford.

The analysis – Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? The Status of EU Citizens Already Living in the UK – looks at the existing process that EU citizens can use to apply for permanent residence, which gives an indication of some of the issues the Government may face in any new registration scheme post-Brexit.

The report finds that while the Government has signalled that it ‘expects’ to protect the long-term status of EU migrants already living here if the UK decides to end free movement, the process of doing this may be complex.

If all EEA citizens already living in the UK in early 2016 applied for permanent residence at once, this would represent the equivalent of around 140 years’ worth of work at recent rates of processing for this type of application.

If existing rules for registering EU citizens as permanent residents are used as the model for a post-Brexit registration process, a substantial minority of EU citizens could find themselves ineligible despite having lived in the country for several years.

Immigration lawyers report that there is particular confusion around the current permanent residence rules for students and self-sufficient people such as retirees, who may not know that they are expected to have comprehensive sickness insurance while in the UK.

As Brexit negotiations are still at an early stage, the Government has not yet laid out what any registration process for EU citizens would look like and who would qualify. It is possible that this process will be similar to the current permanent residence application, but it is also possible that a different and potentially simpler procedure will be introduced.

Read the full report

Representatives of the Hungarian government have made serious allegations about well-established, respected Hungarian NGOs which raise serious doubts about the commitment of the Hungarian government to its obligations as a democratic government and a member of the European Union.

A consortium of three Hungarian civil society organisations which disburse funds locally from the European Economic Area and Norway Grants are currently under investigation by the Hungarian government, following publication by the Prime Minister’s office of a list of recipient organisations, including some of the most reputable human rights and civil liberties groups in the country, which led to accusations of them being “problematic” and “left leaning”.  The three members of the consortium — Autonomia Foundation, DemNet and Ökotárs — are well known for their promotion of democracy, defence of human rights, and environmental work, as well as for ‘re-granting funds’ on behalf of other donors, including the European Union and USAID .  The consortium is challenging the investigation under Hungarian Law and is regarding it as an act of intimidation.

Human rights watchdogs and NGOs have a crucial role in democratic societies.  Any political pressure on them, or any attempt to restrict their funding, is against democratic principles, rules and standards, and the protection of universal values.  

The Barrow Cadbury Trust, as one of many donor organisations committed to human rights and democratic values, has signed a statement protesting about the actions of the Hungarian government against its own human rights NGOs and the consortium of grant-makers. We hope that the Hungarian government refrains from any further political pressure and shelters its NGO sector from threats and interference. We also call on EU member states and institutions to remain vigilant towards any government pressures on civil society organizations, in particular on human rights and civil liberties watchdogs, which have a fundamental role to play in democracy.

The report argues that exports worth £211 billion, which support 4 million British jobs, would be under threat if the UK was to withdraw from the EU because of opposition to free movement.  But IPPR says public support for the continuance of free movement will not be won simply by reiterating statistics about net economic benefits.  Some aspects of the way the system now operates appear unfair to people and advocates of free movement should be willing to accept the need for reform rather than dismissing such concerns, as they often do now.

The report says there are arguments for changing certain rules including:

• addressing the problem of vulnerable low-skilled employment in the UK
• increasing conditions on access to social security assistance for mobile EU citizens
• facilitating the return of individuals who are unable to exercise their free movement rights
• reform of the rules around transitional controls for future accession states

The briefing on the rhetoric of UKIP is the latest in Counterpoint’s series on the rhetoric of populist parties in Europe, ahead of the European Parliament elections.

Populism is a new force in European politics. Tearing up the ideological contours of the 20th Century, its exponents vary from the grievance politics of the radical right and the far left through to dangerous forms of extremism and nationalism, values-and issue-based campaigning and the virulent currents of anti-politics and distrust of elite political projects which are sweeping across Europe.

As the Policy Network and Barrow Cadbury Trust project into the relationship between populism, extremism and mainstream politics shows, underlying the growth of all these populist movements is a series of deep-seated stresses that come to bear on liberal democracy and its mainstream party systems. They are socio-economic, cultural and political in nature.

The conclusions of this extensive cross-European study into how the mainstream parties have responded, and where they have failed to date, underlined the importance of 3 related strategic responses:

Firstly, acknowledge the rise of populism as both a threat and a corrective to democracy. The rise of anti-immigrant and anti-EU populism, for example, should be taken as a signal that mainstream parties have not correctly acknowledged past mistakes or the levels of concern which surround these issues. Progressive political parties cannot simply evade or dismiss the perceived, imagined or real grievances related to identity, cultural dislocation and immigration. Acknowledgement is a precondition to countering myths, getting back in touch with voters and responding to the root causes of discontent. Reframing, ignoring the problem, or simply labelling “reluctant radicals” as ugly racists, fans the flames of populism.

Secondly, work extensively on a governing agenda driven by the acknowledgement of past failings. In essence, getting on with the difficult policy work of formulating strategies in relation to education; housing; social mobility; labour markets; skills and training; sectoral intervention; regulation, i.e. predistribution; community building; policing; public interest regulatory bodies; dispersal of power i.e mutual and co-operative councils; and tackling the EU legitimacy crisis.

Thirdly, ‘contact democracy’ as a strategic response to political distrust. This means championing initiatives, tools and organisations that engage citizens in political dialogue and participation.

The emphasis on acknowledging the problem and ‘improving government’ is nothing particularly new. Moreover, progressive governance has become even more difficult and complex in these times of crisis, with national governments holding less power due to the forces of globalisation and the constraints of the debt crisis on public finances. At the same-time, the digital revolution and technological innovation have left many mainstream political parties hollowed-out and lagging in the past. As The Financial Times commentator Philip Stephens points out, “the political mega-trend of recent decades has been the diffusion of power – from states to other actors and from old elites to citizens.”

The focus on contact democracy and new forms of voter engagement is therefore a crucial supplementary step to building new coalitions which can carry a popular and credible governing progamme. Politics needs to regain legitimacy and this means people feeling more ownership and engagement.

Amidst the cult reportage of the maverick figure-head Beppe Grillo, the often-missed point about the rise of the Five Star Movement in Italy has been their successful use of the internet to encourage grassroots co-ordination among activists at the local level. As Anthony Painter, the author of the final project report, puts it, they have “mastered a viral form of contact democracy”. Italian-based political scientist Duncan McDonnell has documented the use of new tools such as meetup.com, which have been very successfully used by the movement to mobilise and empower supporters. The Five Star Movement has many faults, but their internet and activist engagement success cannot be ridiculed.

To be sure, micro-democratic solutions and deliberative democracy forums do not offer the answers to the complex governing questions around growth and economic rebalancing. But the point is that political elites will soon lose their mandates to take on these difficult challenges with-out opening-up old clientele power structures and dispersing power more widely, embracing the digital revolution and new forms of campaigning and contact democracy. Progressive politics has to focus on the party of the future, not the party of the past.

Michael McTernan is deputy director of Policy Network @mmcternan