Diminished Citizenship: The Impact of Restricted Welfare Rights on the Lives of A8/A2 Migrants in the UK

Following successive waves of  European Union expansion in 2004 and 2007,  debate about the rights of mobile EEA migrants have become a feature of public and political discussion in the UK. The Conservative/ Liberal Democrat Coalition government (2010-2015)  introduced  a number of policy mechanisms (e.g. the Genuine Prospect of Work Test, ineligibility to housing benefit) to restrict the welfare rights of European Migrants. The current majority Conservative UK government appears to be equally committed to this approach. Against this backdrop this paper presents an analysis of new data generated in the first wave of qualitative longitudinal study with 30 European Economic Area migrants six cities in Scotland and England. It explores these migrants’ interactions with Job Centre Plus  and Work Programme providers and more broadly the impact of attempts to restrict their rights to benefits their day to day lives. These migrant respondents are one cohort within a larger, repeat qualitative longitudinal  panel study being conducted as part of a the five year ESRC funded ‘Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions Support and Behaviour Change’ project (see www.welfarecondtionality.ac.uk)