Philip Hammond, British finance minister, said on 28 July that there would not be any immediate modification to immigration or rules of trading when Britain exits the EU in March 2019 and added that the changes to new arrangements could be in place until mid-2022.
An advocate for remaining in the EU, Hammond has been a bargaining for a smooth Brexit, which is business-friendly. Hammond said he wanted to avoid a hard bargain with the EU and emphasized that businesses, as well as UK hospitals and care homes, were dependent on EU migrant workers.
Reuters quoted him as saying in a BBC interview that their government had made it clear that it would take quite some time before they are in a position to control migration between the UK and the EU, adding that they, at present, lacked the capability to track the movement of migrants from the EU.
It has been opined that growing immigration was one of the main reasons that prompted Britons to vote for exiting the EU.
Hammond said that they needed to forge a new long-term relationship with the EU post-Brexit. He felt that this change over could last until the next parliamentary election’s scheduled date in June 2022.
Though British economy managed to perform better than was expected by the government and many analysts after the UK decided to leave the European Union, economic growth in the first half of 2017 has been most fragile since 2012.
Meanwhile, Amber Rudd, Interior minister, has also backed for a more lenient view of immigration.
Earlier on 28 July, the Financial Times reported that Hammond was hoping for transition deal with the EU that would let the existing trading arrangements be in place for a minimum of two years.
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