It doesn't do the UK any good, if there is a large influx of unemployed non-citizens such that it could cripple the country's economy.

It's sort of like that old lifeboat predicament: You're in a lifeboat, with people still in the water who will surely drown. At what point do you stop letting them into your lifeboat, if you stop at all? Do you continue letting them into the lifeboat to the point where the lifeboat collapses, and you all drown? Or do you stop letting tehm in when the lifeboat is packed but not in danger of capsizing? Or do you let no one aboard, for fear there will be a panic of people trying to get into the boat, making a danger of capsizing? And if you do let some people in, is it okay to choose by body size (women, children, small men) so that you can save more people than if you let several large people in?

That's a real predicament. Someone was actually tried criminally for turning people away from a lifeboat. At least I saw a movie about that, and it was supposedly a true event.

It's a position that no one wants to be in. Harsh decisions may have to be made. It's not simple. That movie was interesting, as it showed the lifeboat captain's actions from different points of view. And how cruel it was to see him turn peope away. The irony was, though, that the lifeboat people were alive and able to testify because of the actions the captain was willing to take.

I fall into the "take everyone on board, until there becomes a danger of capsizing. Then row away from the ones left in the water, to avoid a panic, which would also make capsizing a danger." I think body size is a valid thing to decide on, as well, but taking into account who reaches the boat first.

"While more than a million Europeans live and work in the UK, similar numbers of Britons live and work across Europe."

Probably not, but he has an anti-immigrant fringe in his party that he has to keep happy.

I thought conservatives would support individual freedom. If a million Europeans want to live and work in the UK and a million Britons want to live and work in Europe, why is it a good policy for the government to tell one set of a million people that they have to "go home" and tell another set of a million people that they have to "come home".

its up the countries in which UK citizens work if those countries want to reciprocate on this issue.

Australia periodically halted all immigration. Just plain closed the doors. I emigrated to Australia during one of those times and the only reason I got a resident visa was that I had close relatives already living there who owned a business at which I could work. The reasoning, as I understood it, was to control the growth of their population to avoid unemployment. I agree with the above post that said each country has the right to establish its own policies. I'm against policies that discriminate on color, gender or national origin, however if ALL immigration is halted, I see no discrimination in that decision.

Each country can set whatever rules they want for immigrants from outside the EU, to include zero immigration.

But by treaty they are forbidden from limiting the rights of citizens from other EU countries to travel freely within the EU. An EU citizen "exercising treaty rights" in another EU state has the same right to be there as citizens of that state. That's the treaty Britain signed, but they have a reputation for trying to find creative ways to get out of following through on certain aspects of the law that they don't like that much.