The Home Office has recently announced that if there is no Brexit deal in place prior to the UK leaving the EU on 31 October 2019 that there will be an immediate end to the freedom of movement. This means that any person travelling to EU countries from the UK and vice versa may have to apply for visas and will have no automatic right to enter European countries as is currently the case. For our member companies who employ EU nationals, this may cause difficulties if you require your employees to travel for work across different locations around Europe. It will also have implications on any EU national staff members you currently employ in respect of their eligibility and right to continue working in the UK if they have not applied for pre-settled status or citizenship.
If you are thinking about this then do not panic as there are still several issues that will need to be ironed out by the Home Office in their attempts to monitor this given that at present, there is no system in place to work out who is legally in the country. Given that the principle of free movement means that EU nationals do not need to apply for any visa or paperwork to enter or work in the country then it will be extremely difficult for the Home Office to assess who is here legally. The only method of being able to review this is through the settlement scheme which has been open to EU nationals living in the UK since March 2019. However, since the scheme opened only 25% of the estimated EU Nationals living in Scotland have applied for this. The scheme is open until 31 December 2020 if the UK leaves without a deal and 20 June 2021 if it leaves with a deal. Therefore, you may wish to highlight this to your staff particularly if you have EU nationals working in your organisation. Given that there is no way for the Home Office to accurately assess who is here legally on 31 October 2019 then, as has been highlighted by migration experts at Oxford University, the Home Office will find the immediate end of freedom of movement extremely difficult to monitor and police. The Home Office response to these concerns have been that it would set out details of changes to EU migration after Brexit so we will await an update with anticipation…
