When Legal Worlds Collide: An Exploration of What Happens When EU Free Movement Law Meets UK Immigration Law

Abstract

This article explores the interactions between the EU rules on the free movement of persons and the institutions and legal structures of UK immigration law, by providing a case study of the implementation of EU free movement rules in the UK in relation to immigration-related questions such as first entry and residence, stability of residence and family reunion. The research is based on the analysis of both legal doctrine and interview data. The narrow conclusion of the article is that adversarial relationships between the various stakeholders have arisen in this domain, and may hinder the effective application of EU law. In some fields, there has been a consistent failure to apply the correct EU principles at the national level, especially on the part of the UK Border Agency. The broader conclusion concerns the capacity of this type of contextualised analysis to provider richer comparisons between legal sectors and Member States, offering a more nuanced view of how the worlds of EU law and national law intersect.

Keywords: law, European Union, citizenship, immigration, sovereignty, free movement, courts, empirical research