There is no real ability to control free movement - as Angela Merkel has made abundantly clear on many occasions. The four freedoms are part and parcel of the common market and the choice appears to be accepting all of them or leaving entirely.
We are required to accept as many EU migrants as wish to settle here, so long as they are capable of self sufficiency, with no ability to restrict or control their numbers: just as we saw when the then Labour Government lied to the country about the potential scale of Eastern European migration in the middle of the last decade and we ended up receiving a large multiple of the number predicted.
The controls you note above are limited in scope, applying only to those who are not self sufficient, and I suspect they are virtually unenforceable anyway once people are already living here. In any case they do nothing to address the fundamental concern of many leave voters, or indeed those remain voters who are open minded enough to acknowledge that the EU is far from perfect! The issue isn’t just about migrants who “take the mic” (most don’t).
All rubbish sorry.
As I said, we do have the ability to restrict it. Our government just decided not to implement any.
Now, the restrictions that we are able to implement may not be strong enough for you (and that is a legitimate debate we can have), but that is totally different to them not existing at all, and to argue that "there is no real ability to control free movement" is simply false.
Now, if you want to have a discussion about how much we should be able to restrict it (and that you probably feel what we could do, but choose not to, isn't enough) then fine. But first of all you do have to accept that actually, within EU law, we can actually have some restrictions and controls on EU freedom of movement into this country.
You don’t get to just live in any country you like as an absolute right. It’s always been a conditional right.
And that also applies to others settling in the UK. Once again, it is not an absolute right that EU citizens can settle in the UK. The only reason it has ended up feeling like it is is because our government has failed to implement any of the measures the EU allows to restrict it.
The Blair government tried to introduce an ID card system, it was massively controversial and legislation to introduce a non-compulsary system was introduced and passed. None of it was implemented, and the legislation repealed.
No politician is going to try and resurrect it unless they want to lose!
And yet, according to recent polls and research, the majority of the public would be happy with the idea.
Now, of course that is not to say it is a good idea, or that it would 100% pass a referendum if one were to take place.
But ID cards, especially among younger people who are used to having a driving license on them 100% of the time anyway (or those who don't have a driving license and so have to faff with taking their passport out with them!), are not as vote losing as you may think.
