You need to read up on this W_Y. Citizenship of the European Union (EU) is afforded to qualifying citizens of EU member states - this was given to citizens of members states by the Maastricht Treaty. This is additional to national citizenship and affords rights, freedoms and legal protection to all of its citizens. You say that EU. citizens will still be able to visit the UK. as before - which means without a Visa (which is already different to Papua New Guinea). But once in is in and Britain has not done such a great job on regulating employment up to now, which is why Britain has around a quarter of a million non EU. citizens working illegally. So the plan is to add to that number ? The reason why Britain is so popular is that people think that the chances of picking up casual, semi legal, cash in hand jobs there is higher than anywhere else, and they are right. It must make sense to favour short distance migration (ie. from the EU), because research has shown that short distance migrants maintain more contact to their homelands than migrants from longer distances. Poles and Rumanians will send money home, and eventually return to their original countries - those from eg. Pakistan will not. Another point is that targetted migration eg. medical staff from the Phillipines or South Africa, can only be done if there is a surplus of appropriately trained people in those countries. Poaching workers in this way can lead to a shortage there if they have no surplus - which, in turn, can lead to compensation money being paid at the national level. Britain has already been ordered to pay South Africa for poaching workers in this way for NHS staff.