09/07/2016
Tragically, the establishment opinion-formers are so way behind the curve on the free movement of persons issue that we're getting
this from the
Independent, purporting to be at the cutting edge of the debate.
According to this piece, based on a survey carried out by pollsters ORB, a clear majority of respondents favour keeping single market "access" against those who put capping immigration first â by a factor of 48 to 37 percent.
Predictably, there is a split between the two sides in the referendum debate, with the "remains" single market access by an overwhelming 76 percent to 12 per cent.
By contrast, only about 20 percent of leavers thought the single market was more important. A clear 67 percent of those who say they voted to quit the bloc last month were adamant that EU immigration needed to be reduced whatever the consequences for single market.
Through this lowly blog, however, we have been exploring these issues with an intensity unmatched elsewhere, for years longer than some of the more prominent pundits.
Through diligent and persistent research and the interchange of ideas, we can now see that there is a legally sound and practical mechanism which has the potential for resolving the tension between Single Market participation and free movement.
The arguments are encapsulated in three posts covering our so-called Liechtenstein solution,
here,
here and
here. And with that, we're now in a position to pull together all the threads and present them in a single paper.
Coincidentally, I have been invited to give oral evidence to the
Treasury Select Committee on Wednesday, and I'm minded also to send the paper to the Committee as a formal written submission.
Thus, I'm going to spend a couple of days working on a single paper, which I'll "test drive" here on the blog in order to fine-tune the submission. If we've got it right, we're in a position to make a genuine contribution to a serious and long-standing problem.
Watch this space.
