This Research Paper is written by Aditya kamal (1st year BBA LLB in Kle Law College, Bangalore)
EXORDIUM
In this article, I would like to put forward two questions. The first is that “what is the reason for BREXIT” and the next is “Why did the UK impose Immigration Sanctions”. The main idea of this article is to highlight the policy framework of the Uk’s Immigration and its contribution to the EU. UK was standing in the first position in the contribution towards the UK for a period of 3 consecutive years.
What is the reason for BREXIT?
There are many reasons for the UK to exit from the European Union, but one of the most important reasons is that the UK could keep the contributed money to itself and use it in the development of the State. As discussed earlier Uk is the major contributor to the EU. According to the reports “UK’s contribution is worth about $19 billion, which is an average of $300 per UK citizen”.[1]
Why did UK impose Immigration Sanctions?
After the UK had faced Financial Crisis in 2008, it had witnessed a boom in the number of immigrants to the UK which led to the lack of opportunities for its citizens. Most of its immigrants were from countries like Italy, Ireland and Lithuania. This was majorly encouraged by the European Union. By imposing sanctions UK wants to provide opportunities to its citizens.[2]
CHRONICLE
1)Inception of UK into the Consortium of European Union.
After the destruction was witnessed after World War II, there was a mere desire to keep the European Nation’s together. This ideology was supported by Winston Churchill who says that “ a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom…a kind of United States of Europe”. At first, Britain declined the offer and it didn’t attend the Treaty of Rome in 1957 when invited. The statement given by the then Prime Minister of Britain Clement Attlee to the Parliament was “ his party was not prepared to accept the principle that the most vital economic forces of this country should be handed over to an authority that is utterly undemocratic and is responsible to nobody”. By the end of the 1950s, Britain started to face a despondent mood of national declinism. The United Kingdom had signed the Treaty of Accession in Brussels on 22 January 1972 and became a member of the EEC the following year.[3]
2)What is The European Communities Act of 1972?
The European Communities Act of 1972 is just a piece of legislation that gives the EU supremacy over the Uk’s National Law. Although this Act was repealed by the EU Withdrawal Act of 2018, some parts of this Act are still intact and are in transition to change. The EEC was renamed as EU(European Union) in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992.[4]
UK’S BESTOWAL
1)Impact on UK’s Economic Growth after Inception into EU
Although the current Prime Minister of UK Borris Johnson says that the inception of the UK into the EU made the UK go into lowest growth ever recorded, Professor Sir David Hendry and Professor Dyone Farmer in their statements given to the Times INET say that the UK had seen exponential growth since the inception into the EU as there was an increase in the Per Capita GDP Income by 103% exceeding the United States. They also say that after its inception the trade of the UK expanded into the other member states of the EU and Eu also stated that if the UK leaves, it would be left with only Canada and Australia for exports.[5]
2)United Kingdom’s Financial Contributions to European Union(EU)
According to the reports obtained by CNBC, they state that in the years 2014 and 2015 UK stood as the Fourth and Third largest contributor to the European Union Budget, with a sum of 18.20 billion euros in 2015 where the total budget was 118.60 billion euros.
Not only the United Kingdom had contributed the most but also It had received a satisfiable rate of returns among all the other member nations of the European Union. In 2015, the UK was the 6th largest recipient of EU’s expenditure.[6]
UK’S PIONEER ENDORSEMENTS
1)UK’s Idea for Imposing Sanctions on Immigrations
In 2010, when Theresa May had sworn in as the Home Minister, her first task was to take strict action on illegal immigrants and to control the immigration checks and procedures. Although everybody knew that this policy wouldn’t be much effective and unachievable, in 2012 May had announced the introduction of a “really hostile environment for illegal immigrants”.
After announcing the launch of the hostile environment in 2012 by May, she had taken several critical measures such as: cutting down basic services, establishing biometric scanners around the borders and she had deployed many trained officials to take a dig into every citizens’ everyday right to access basic necessities. Not only these but May had also initiated some other policies like deporting all the illegal immigrants by naming them as foreign criminals on the basis of police contact which was named “Operation Nexus”. Operation Vaken , where there were billboards hung to the vans saying “Go Home or face Arrests” which were driven all over the streets of London.
This “hostile environment” had affected a large number of people as there was an estimation that there were around 800,000 – 1.2 million illegal immigrants across the UK and this policy had not only affected the illegal immigrants but also the citizens who were holding British Citizenship.
May had taken such harsh step towards all the immigrants as they were doubling in number every year and due to this the original citizens of UK weren’t able to get good job opportunities and were lacking behind in every area/sector of the economy, which feared the leaders that this may lead to the total takeover by all the immigrants and the citizens would become minority here.[7]
BREXIT
1)Reasons for the United Kingdom Deciding to part off from the European Union
To be precise, the study of the UK deciding to come out of the EU can be divided into 3 major categories, they are:
A)The referendum campaign and the vote itself: Way back in 2016 when the then Prime Minister Theresa May had triggered Article 50 in the Parliament which led to the electoral voting and it came out with a percentage of 52% who were willing and gave their acceptance to leave European Union and the other 48% didn’t.
B)Change in the attitude of membership since the 2000s: The people that since the early 2000s EU wasn’t giving proper importance and was really happy with the UK taking part in any of the policymaking systems. EU had never spoken or really addressed any statement about the overpopulation of illegal immigrants which in a way led to the 2008 Crisis.
C)Consequences of BREXIT on UK’s Economy and Society: Many of the lawmakers in the UK’s parliament opined that BREXIT would be a great idea as they believed that since the inception into EU, the UK had only faced recessions and nothing else which we had discussed in the previous instances above.
According to some interview clips given by different heads of the state of the UK, it can be believed that the UK wanted a constitutional change in its legal system and wanted to witness the change it would take place in the economy of the British and the rest of the world.[8]
IN CLOSING
To conclude the topic I would to put forward my viewpoints and experience on writing this research paper. All through this time, I got to know about many aspects of BREXIT and why did the United Kingdom actually part off from European Union. I was able to eliminate many of the wrong speculations in and around the topic of BREXIT as even I wasn’t fully aware of this topic. I was able to write the whole topic with the help of the available resources and a good mentor who had guided me to write this paper in an organized manner
[1] Lee TB, “Brexit: The 7 Most Important Arguments for Britain to Leave the EU” (VoxJune 22, 2016) <https://www.vox.com/2016/6/22/11992106/brexit-arguments> accessed January 5, 2022
[2]Ibid
[3]Staff TW, “Why Did the UK Join the EU?” (The Week UKMarch 20, 2019) <https://www.theweek.co.uk/100313/why-did-the-uk-join-the-eu> accessed January 5, 2022
[4]Jack MT, “European Communities Act 1972 | The Institute for Government” (European Communities Act 1972February 24, 2020) <https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/european-communities-act-1972> accessed January 5, 2022
[5]Institute for New Economic Thinking, “How Did the UK Economy Do since Joining the EU?” (INET OxfordJune 6, 2016) <https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/news/brexit/> accessed January 6, 2022
[6]Amaro S, “Here’s How Important the UK Is to the European Union” (CNBCMarch 27, 2017) <https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/27/european-union-uk-important-brexit.html> accessed January 6, 2022
[7]Melanie Griffiths CY, “The UK’s Hostile Environment: Deputising Immigration Control – Melanie Griffiths, Colin Yeo, 2021” (SAGE JournalsJanuary 11, 2021) <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0261018320980653> accessed January 6, 2022
[8]Clarke HD and Goodwin PM, “Insight: Why Britain Really Voted to Leave the European Union” (University of EssexMay 4, 2020) <https://www.essex.ac.uk/research/showcase/why-britain-really-voted-to-leave-the-european-union> accessed January 6, 2022
