'No right to remain' for new EU migrants to Britain

LONDON • The head of Britain's new Brexit ministry yesterday said that European Union (EU) migrants arriving between now and the country's official departure from the bloc may not be guaranteed the right to remain.

Mr David Davis told the Mail On Sunday that he would negotiate with European leaders to secure "a generous settlement for EU migrants here now and a generous settlement for British citizens in the EU", but offered no such assurances for newcomers.

"There are a variety of possibilities," he said of plans to deal with a predicted "surge" in arrivals from the EU ahead of Britain's departure.

"We may have to say that the right to indefinite leave to remain protection only applies before a certain date. But you have to make those judgments on reality, not speculation," said Mr Davis.

He dismissed the idea that three million migrants from countries including Poland and Romania may be forced to leave.

Britain will have to stick to the EU's freedom of movement rules until it officially leaves, but will then have control over who stays in the country, including over those who arrived before the pullout date.

Mr Davis has said that invoking Article 50, which would trigger official negotiations to leave the EU, should happen by the beginning of next year.

The negotiations have a two-year time limit, meaning Britain would leave by early 2019, at the latest.

The EU Commission is refusing to hold talks until Article 50 takes effect, but Mr Davis said some dialogue was inevitable.

"We don't have to do any negotiations, just find out where their interests are," he told the paper.

"(Foreign Secretary) Boris Johnson is going to the EU foreign affairs council this weekend. Are they going to say, 'Oh, I can't mention this to you?' Of course not."

Mr Davis also rejected forecasts of a recession caused by Brexit.

He said that freed from the EU's shackles, Britain would become the "most open-market and open-minded country in the world".

A raft of "fantastic" new trade deals outside the EU would "buffer any turbulence", he told the Mail On Sunday.

Mr Davis, 67, has been a long- time eurosceptic and was briefly Europe Minister in the Conservative government of former prime minister John Major in the 1990s.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on July 18, 2016, with the headline 'No right to remain' for new EU migrants to Britain. Subscribe