The government plans to allow more EU nationals to live and work on the UK. Supporters say it will help with labour shortages - critics warm that it will add pressure to already stretched services.
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00:00While immigration remains one of the most talked about issues in British politics, net migration to the UK last year was around 728,000.
00:10And now the government is considering a new agreement with the European Union that could open the door to more EU nationals coming here.
00:18And earlier I spoke to politics expert Dr Steve McCabe.
00:22So where does that sort of leave us? Well, immigration is something which for a lot of people has become sort of really problematic.
00:29And indeed, of course, Keir Starmer sort of found to his cost that, of course, by using sort of the strangers of their own country, he's castigated by his own party or certainly those on the left wing of his own party.
00:41And some on the right are sort of complimenting him, but then at the same sort of time criticised for not going far enough.
00:46So immigration is a really difficult one because quite clearly there's a whole set of other sort of issues that sort of flow from it in terms of housing and services and jobs, most particularly.
00:56And again, I come back to Brexit, which, of course, is about sort of people coming into this country and under the rules of free movement,
01:03which, of course, is what's being part of the European Union in the single market enshrined.
01:08And then they could people who came from any part of the EU and were citizens could then sort of avail of sort of jobs and, of course, the services.
01:17So what we've got is this really sort of complicated and quite noxious set of sort of arguments.
01:22But, of course, the reality is the sort of the numbers speak for themselves.
01:25When you've got sort of immigration in recent years of, you know, in some cases going beyond a million people, we're not certainly building enough houses for that.
01:33And indeed, of course, the job situation has become sort of much more precarious.
01:38And indeed, you know, if I sort of may speak as a sort of an economist, there is this difficulty.
01:42You know, we need to sort of go the economy. But, of course, if the economy is going at this amount, but the population is growing a sort of greater amount,
01:49then we all become collectively poorer and we sort of see the sort of consequence of that.
01:53In a nutshell, it's a sort of issue which, of course, has resurrected itself.
01:57It may not have been an issue at the sort of the last election, but I suspect it's going to be a very big issue sort of next time around when we have the election, probably in four years time.
02:06And indeed, of course, the sort of the one winner of this particular sort of issue is Reform UK, which, of course, they have sort of promised they're sort of going to sort of clamp down in a way which Labour are sort of having to sort of react and respond to.
02:19And, of course, that's the sort of the very cynical view of many.
02:21But I think there is a degree of truth in that they're sort of having to sort of to state their territory, because if they don't, Reform will eat them alive.