The Unravelling of Europe: Immigration, Benefits and Brexit, (September 2016)

Dr Amy Ludlow, University of Cambridge.

CELRL Labour Law Seminar

The Unravelling of Europe: Immigration, Benefits and Brexit

Seminar presented by Dr Amy Ludlow, University of Cambridge.

Thursday, 29 September 2016: 1:00 - 2:00 PM

The Seminar Room

About the event

This seminar explored how immigration issues, particularly the question of immigrants’ entitlements to UK social security benefits, played out in Brexit debates in the UK. Dr Amy Ludlow suggested that there was an alternative response to the immigration concerns of communities that voted to leave the EU, namely increased social protection. Drawing on findings from a two year empirical study of employment enforcement practices and experiences among EU-8 migrant workers, Dr Ludlow charted how the state has produced vulnerability and precariousness for EU nationals in the UK, through deregulation, criminalisation and disinvestment. Dr Ludlow called for a broadened focus on high quality, secure work opportunities for all, migrant and non-migrant alike, and a greater focus on the state’s power and responsibility to govern in ways that provide adequate social protection in an ever changing and increasingly interconnected world.

About the speaker

Dr Amy Ludlow is a College Lecturer and Fellow in Law at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge. Amy teaches criminal, labour and EU law at the University. Her research focuses particularly upon how public services can be commissioned and contracted for in ways that support their improvement, especially in respect of staff culture in the context of prisons. Amy has an interest in empirical legal methodology. During 2016 Amy is working with her Cambridge colleague, Professor Catherine Barnard, on an ESRC funded project ‘Honeypot Britain? The Lived Experience of Working as an EU Migrant in the UK’ as part of a programme called ‘The UK in a Changing Europe’.

Amy Ludlow headshot